Politics of Anticorruption in China: Paradigm Change of the Party's

Journal of Contemporary China

ISSN: 1067-0564 (Print) 1469-9400 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjcc20

Politics of Anticorruption in China: Paradigm Change of the Party’s Disciplinary Regime 2012–2017

Ling Li

To cite this article: Ling Li (2019) Politics of Anticorruption in China: Paradigm Change of the Party’s Disciplinary Regime 2012–2017, Journal of Contemporary China, 28:115, 47-63, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2018.1497911 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1497911

Published online: 19 Jul 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1681

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjcc20 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 2019, VOL. 28, NO. 115, 47–63 https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1497911

Politics of Anticorruption in China: Paradigm Change of the Party’s Disciplinary Regime 2012–2017 Ling Li

University of Vienna, Austria

ABSTRACT This article traces the process of Xi Jinping’s campaign in 2012–2017 and explains how an anticorruption effort has been transformed into an exercise of power-consolidation for his office. The findings of this article are three-fold. First, the power-consolidation process has benefited from a combination of an ideological campaign and a disciplinary campaign, which were not only synchronized but also feed into one another to achieve a shared goal. Second, the campaign became politicized around midterm and intensified afterwards. The pace of progress of the campaign coincided with Xi Jinping’s advancement of power. Third, the most significant outcome of Xi Jinping’s campaign is not the numbers of disciplined corrupt officials but the paradigm-change in the disciplinary regime of the Party: first, the reversal of the depoliticization process of the Party’s disciplinary regime; second, the retention of temporarily mobilized anticorruption resources; and third the simplification of evidence production procedure. The combined result is a considerable expansion of the CCDI’s anticorruption investigative capacities and a significant increase Xi Jinping’s leverage to impose political loyalty and compliance upon Party officials in the future.

Introduction From an obscure bureaucrat and political underdog1 to the ‘Chairman of everything’, who is expected to ‘change the history of the world’,2 China’s president Xi Jinping has demonstrated remarkable ability for political manoeuvring which has captured the imagination of journalists and political analysts around the world.3 While observers are distracted by the irresistible temptation to speculate on the future, they tend to neglect one question, a question that might have profound implications for our understanding of Chinese politics but is seldom asked: how come Xi, someone who was considered lacking charisma, enjoying feeble factional support and having shown mediocre administrative performance records,4 managed to consolidate power so quickly and eﬀectively in a highly contested political environment such as that of the Politburo? Occasionally, a weak political leader might strengthen his position by capitalizing on incidental

CONTACT Ling LI [email protected] 1Sangkuk Lee, ‘An Institutional Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Centralization of Power’, Journal of Contemporary China 26(105), (2017), pp. 325–336. p. 326. footnote 5. 2Javier C. Hernandez, ‘China’s “Chairman of Everything”: Behind Xi Jinping’s Many Titles’, New York Times, (25 October 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-titles-chairman.html. (accessed 22 June 2018); Graham Allison, ‘The chairman of everything: why Chinese president Xi Jinping will change history’, New Statesman, (4 December 2017), https://www.economist.com/china/2016/04/02/chairman-of-everything. (accessed 22 June 2018). 3Macabe Keliher and Hsinchao Wu, ‘Corruption, Anticorruption, and the Transformation of Political Culture in Contemporary China’, The Journal of Asian studies 75(1), (2016), pp. 5–18. 4Cheng Li, China’s Midterm Jockeying: Gearing Up for 2012 (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2010). © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 48 L. LI events, such as an existential threat, either putative or validated, from a foreign enemy. Such moments of crisis might help a leader quell political infighting, inspire solidarity, command following that may not otherwise have been available to him. However, none of these occurred during Xi Jinping’s first term. Then, what else could have enabled him? In a recent article which appeared in this journal, Sangkuk Lee made an intriguing ‘institutional analysis’ and attributed Xi Jinping’s political achievement to the power of enlightenment of a theory called ‘Open Complex Giant System (OCGS)’ .5 The leading author of the OCGS theory, which can be traced back to 1990, is the late natural scientist Qian Xuesen. Known as the ‘father of aerospace engineering’ in China, Qian was also an avid believer and campaigner for extrasensory perception, more commonly known as the sixth sense.6 Inspired by his observations of extrasensory perceptions, Qian drew analogy between the function of human body and mind, the working of the universe and the operation of human societies..7 The OCGS considers that certain systems, including social system, are open, complex and gigantic and that in dealing with such systems, one should change the conventional scientific paradigm and replace reductionist thinking and linear approaches with systematic thinking and a holistic approach, for instance, through cross-disciplinary and ‘cross-intelligence’ (human and artificial) collaboration8 According to Sangkuk Lee, the OCGS has inspired Xi Jinping as well as his colleagues and became the epistemological foundation of Xi’s broad political programme called ‘comprehensive deepening reform’. Searching in a vast collection of Xi Jinping’s speeches, Lee found the following terms, ‘whole’, ‘comprehensive’, ‘systematic’, ‘long-term’, ‘two centenary goals’, ‘top-down design’, ‘overall planning’, ‘coordinated steps’, and earnestly deployed them as proof of Xi’s appreciation of and commitment to the OCGS.9 Lee further believed that Xi’s decisions to establish and head a cluster of small leading groups, which gives Xi more power than others in all key sectors, are guided by the OCGS because centralizing power is a necessary step to actualize ‘top-down design’ and ‘overall planning’, wisdom enshrined in the OCGS.10 One can perhaps understand the appeal of a ‘holistic theory’ to a Chinese audience, whose philosophy is significantly influenced by a ‘holistic’ ontological orientation. However, to use the appearance of a few refashioned vague concepts as evidence of a presumed causal link between an underdeveloped theory and a complicated political process requires a number of leaps of faith that any seasoned observer of Chinese politics would never be comfortable to take. To start with, in inventing such a link, the author neglected the fact that in a single party-state the Party monopolizes the power of policy-making with respect to all issues of significance. Therefore, all national policies are in essence products of ‘top-down design’ and ‘overall planning’. Furthermore, to consider that an academic concept can unite an otherwise divided Politburo due to entrenched factional interests and persuade its members to agree to a redistribution of power among themselves in a way that benefits one over all others11 is a crude oversimplification of the matter, to say the least. It is also against the very spirit of the so-called complex systems ‘theory’ that the author seems to value. Needless to say, to address and fully explain a power shift in the Politburo is a daunting task for any analyst at any time. The challenge rests not only in the complexity of power dynamics but also in the opaqueness of the operation of the institution concerned. This latter factor causes a significant information gap between what has in fact happened and what we know has happened and can easily blind us to

5Xuesen Qian, ‘一个科学新领域——开放的复杂巨系统及其方法论 [A new field of science—A open complex giant system and its methodology]’, 城市发展研究[Urban Development Studies] 12(5), (2005), pp. 526–532. 6Qian had once spoken to an audience of the Chinese Association of Extrasensory Science that the study of extrasensory perception had the potential to trigger a scientific revolution that is more impactful than the discovery of relativity theory. For more details, see 涂建华 Tu Jianhua, ‘特异功能20年历程及其特点 [20-Year History of Extrasensory Perception and its characteristics]’, 湖南城市学院学报 [Hunan City College Journal] 30(4), (2009), pp. 14–19. 7Lu Mingsen, ‘“开放的复杂巨系统”概念的形成 [The formation of the concept of “open complex giant system”]’, 中国工程科学 [Engineering Science of China] 6(5), (2004), pp. 17–23. 8Qian, ‘一个科学新领域——开放的复杂巨系统及其方法论 [A new field of science—A open complex giant system and its methodology].’ 9Lee, ‘An Institutional Analysis of Xi Jinping’s Centralization of Power’. pp. 330–333. 10Ibid. pp. 333–335. 11Ibid. pp. 327–329. JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 49 critical factors and relevant dynamic changes and lead us to skewed analysis. Moreover, studying Xi’srise to power has an additional challenge because when dealing with a contemporary issue one lacks the information that may possibly be made available only at a later time. On the other hand, such contemporaneity may serve certain benefits. It may enhance our informational base because it allows us the access to information that may be discarded or lost in the archiving process at a later stage. In addition, to observe a contemporary phenomenon while it occurs may equip us with a certain kind of sensibility, an intuition that we may not be able to benefit from when looking back into distant archives of atimethatwehavelongsincebecomedetachedfrom. This article intends to provide an analytical account of the ideological and disciplinary campaigns during President Xi Jinping’s first term of office, which will be used as the basis for the analysis of Xi’s power-consolidation process. The materials used in this study are comprised of primary sources, gleaned mainly from the official websites of the Central Commission of Discipline and Inspection (CCDI), the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) and other major news portals in China, including Party policy documents, Party rules and regulations, speeches of Party leaders, interpretive and explanatory materials disseminated by the Party for training purposes and op-eds concerning the Campaign activities. The data supporting the statistical analyses are contained in archives of annual work reports of the CCDI.

Ideological campaign The ideological campaign launched by Xi Jinping in 2012–2017 is wide in its reach and of long duration, spanning his entire first term of office. One should not take such feature for granted. Not all campaigns initiated by Party leaders can run its intended course. For example, the ambitious anti-spiritual- pollution campaign initiated by Deng Liqun and supported by Deng Xiaoping in 1983 was aborted after 4 weeks because of opposition from within the Party.12 The endurance of Xi’s campaign is particularly noteworthy because it started with an austerity programme that is very unpopular among Party officials despite its popularity among the masses. This is predictable because the anticorruption drive takes away valuable perks and fringe benefits that these officials have long taken for granted. Their resentment increases with the rigidity of the campaign. Such resentment can, in some case, halt the development of the political career of a politician.13 This is perhaps why previous austerity campaigns seldom lasted long and most remained declarative and non-committal.14 Xi’s ideological campaign consists of three ‘Party Education Programs’, which bears a considerable resemblance of the party-style rectification campaigns in Yan’an (Yan’an Campaign) during the 1940s.

Historical origin The term ‘party-style’ was ﬁrst conceptualized by Mao Zedong, though one can also ﬁnd its origin in the works of Marx and Lenin.15 This phrase gained currency after Mao delivered the speech ‘On the Party’s Working Styles’ at the opening of the Party School of the Central

12Shi Binhai and Yijun Shi, ‘《关于经济体制改革的决定》起草过程[The drafting process of Decision on Economic System Reform]’, 炎黄春秋[Yan Huang Chun Qiu] 7, (2017), pp. 8–14.; Shaozhi Su, ‘超越党文化的思想樊篱[Over the thought fence of Party Culture],’ available at: http://www.modernchinastudies.org/cn/issues/past-issues/96-mcs-07-issue-2/1004-2012-01- 05-15-35-22.html. (accessed 11 May 2018). 13For this reason, austerity campaign may be risky for the campaign leader since resentment from Party elites sometimes can bring the political career of the campaign enforcer to a halt. For example, an attempt to revoke the practice of supplying special goods to Party leaders in the 1980s had caused a lot of resentment against Wang Zhaoguo, the one who brought this initiative. See Anonymous, ‘王兆国因何错失成为第四代领导核心?[How did Wang Zhaoguo miss the opportunity to become the core of the 4th generation of leadership]’, UNIZW Newspaper, (8 June 2016), available at: http://m.uzbzw.com/ mon/keji/20170622/38505.html (accessed 22 June 2018). 14See the regulation issued by the Party Centre: Zhonggong Zhongyang [Party Center], ‘关于党和国家机关必须保持廉洁的通知 [Notice on the Preservation of Practices of Clean Governance for Party and State Institutions]’, (1988), available at: http://gaige.rednet.cn/c/2008/05/04/1498868.htm. (accessed 17 June 2018). 15Cui Yuan, ‘列宁关于执政党党风问题的探索 [Lenin’s Probe on the Work-Styles of the Ruling Party],’ Doctoral thesis, 南京师范大学, Nanjing Normal University, 2011. 50 L. LI

Committee in 1942,16 which marked the beginning of the Yan’an Campaign. The campaign helped Mao to establish his authority as the leader of the Party through the promotion of sinification of Marxism. After 1949, the Party continued to use rectificationcampaignsasa mechanism to enforce its prioritized policies. Between the 1950s and 1970s, more than 50 rectification campaigns were launched, with constant shift of political orientation. During the early reform era in the 1980s, rectification campaigns receded in frequency and erraticism but remained an indispensable tool of the Party to command ideological conformity and disciplinary compliance. In the 1990s, the rectification campaigns were rebranded as the Party’s EducationProgramsonSelectedThemes党的专题教育活动 (hereinafter Party Education Program or PEP) as a part of the ‘Party-building’ initiative. In comparison, Jiang Zemin orga- nized one PEP during his last term in 1997–2002; Hi Jintao had two PEPs in two terms between 2002 and 2012; Xi launched three in one single term.

Xi Jinping’s party education program (PEP) Xi Jinping’s first PEP is called Educational Activities regarding the Party’s Mass-Line Policy (Mass-Line Program). The programme targets Party cadres with supervisory functions or ‘leading cadres’ 党的领导干部in order to rectify four types of harmful behaviours, the so-called ‘four party-styles 四风’:formalism(superficial conformity), bureaucratism (irresponsiveness, inactive- ness, delays and other work-to-rule type of behaviours), hedonism and prodigality. The programme activities consist of, as figuratively described, ‘looking in a mirror’, ‘putting one’s attires in places’ and ‘taking a shower’. In practice, this programme requires leading cadres to conduct self-examination and self-criticism in front of their subordinates as well as to solicit criticism against themselves from the latter17. To prevent the programme from degenerating into empty talks, the Politburo issued a decree called Eight-Provisions on Strengthening [the Party’s] Relations with the Masses and Improving the [Party’s] Work Styles (hereinafter Eight-Provisions八项规定). The Eight-Provisions lays down con- crete requirements on how to conduct official business, such as the duration and choice of venue of governmental conferences. It also places detailed budgetary constraints on eight categories of public expenses, for instance, business meals, use of office space and government cars and travel expenses.18 The Eight-Provisions provides the main talking points for criticisms and self-criticisms in the Mass-Line PEP activities. After being in operation for two years, the Mass-line Program was replaced in 2015 by a new programme focusing on self-discipline and honesty conduct referred to as ‘Three-Strict and Three- honest三严三实’ (hereinafter Three-Strict). Targets of this education programme remain limited to leading cadres. In 2016, the ‘Three-Strict’ program was phased out and replaced by the ‘Two-Studies and One-Become两学一做’ (Two-Studies) Program. Unlike the previous programmes, which targeted leading cadres, the Two-Studies program is mandatory for all Party-members, including those of rank and file with no supervisory function.

16Zedong Mao, ed., Rectify the Party’s Style of Work, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Beijing: Renmin Publishing House, 1942). 17Jinping Xi, ‘在党的群众路线教育实践活动工作会议上的讲话 [Speech at the Work Conference on the Mass Line Educational Campaign]’, 党建研究[Party Construction Research] 8, (2013), pp. 4–12. 18To be more specific, the eight areas concern: 1) logistic arrangements for field visits of Party leaders, 2) work conference productivity and related logistic arrangements, 3) productivity regarding the drafting and issuance of official documents, 4) logistic arrangements for overseas diplomatic visits of Party leaders, 5) impact of public disturbance of security protocols for official visits in particular the use of motorcade and traffic control, 6) practices on mandatory coverage of official activities of Party leaders in the mass media, 7) rules on the publication of Party leaders’ manuscripts, public speeches and the exhibition of their scripts and autographs, and 8) dispensation of perks, benefits and privileges drawn from public funds. See the regulation issued by the Politburo: Politburo, ‘Decision of Eight Rules regarding Strengthening Relations with the Masses and Improving the Work Styles’, (2012). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 51

Shift from populism to ‘cultism’ The first driver of Xi Jinping’s ideological campaign is the mass-line policy, which is populist in nature— to connect the activities of Party cadres closely to the demands of the people. However, starting from the second PEP, the Three-Strict program, two new subject matters that are not related to the mass-line policy were introduced to the study curriculum: political discipline 政治纪律 and political protocols政治规矩.19 Traditional political offenses include, inter alia, ideological deviances, violations of religious or ethnic minorities policies, sedition, treason and espionage. In 2014, Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), became the first Party official who is openly denounced by the Party for violation of political discipline in the last two decades. Unlike political discipline, ‘political protocol’ is a new concept, only introduced to the political parlance of the Party during Xi’s campaign. It started to appear in Xi Jinping’s speeches and numerous editorials of media outlets run by the Party in the mid-2014 and early 2015. In one such speech, Xi characterized ‘political protocol’ in these words: ‘To follow the Party’s leadership, one must follow the converged and unified leadership of the Party Centre—this is a fundamental rule of Party protocols’. Su Rong and Ling Jihua were the first among many high-ranking Party officials who were denounced for violation of both political discipline and political protocols. In the PEPs, the cases of Ling Jihua, Zhou Yongkang and similar constitute an important part of the study materials, being used to illustrate these officials’ wrongdoings. Through characterization and recharacterization of the conducts of these rule-bending officials, all of whom were later convicted as criminals, the PEP campaign refashioned or operationalized some of the traditional political offenses that had long remained inactive because they were too vague or had gone out of date. For example, the Party prohibits unauthorized competition or lobbying within the Party. In the past, such conduct was punished under the label of Anti-Party conspiracy,20 which is very vague and difficult to ascertain. There had been no known cases of any Party member being punished for this offense since the end of the Cultural Revolution until now.21 During this campaign, Ling Jihua became the poster boy for conducting ‘unorga- nized political activity 非组织活动’,i.e.politicalactivitiesthat are not authorized by Party organizations. As the former chief-of-staff of Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao, Ling was accused of organizing a club of political and business elites who shared his place of birth or original residence. The club, called Xishan Society, was characterized as a factional group that had not only facilitated corruption but also functioned as an underground power network that was used to organize political conspiracies with a purpose to undermine the authority of the Party Centre.22 Such ‘group-forming’ and ‘alliance-making’ activities were later formally defined as a violation of political protocol and used as a ground for disciplinary sanction.23 Another example concerns Zhou Benshun, former Party secretary of Hebei Province. Zhou once criticized the Eight-Provisions in front of others, saying that the policy was ‘unnecessarily stringent and rigid’ and that ‘there is nothing wrong with drinking [at banquets] . . . [because] drinking helps create a good spirit for the gathering.’24 Such comments became a textbook example of the offense of voicing dissenting opinions of central Party policies with the purpose to defy the authority of the Party Centre妄议中央,

19Central Organization Department, ‘汲取周永康薄熙来案件教训坚守政治规矩 [Learn from the lesson of Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai, Adhere Firmly to Political Protocols]“, Sina News, (27 July 2017), available at: http://news.china.com/domestic/ 945/20150727/20088242.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). 20For instance, for the case of Gao Gang and Rao Shushi, see Party document issued by the National Party Delegate Conference, ‘Decision on the Gao Gang/Rao Shushi Anti-Party Alliance’, (1955), available at: http://dangshi.people.com.cn/GB/151935/ 176588/176595/10555564.html (accessed 15 June 2018). 21This offense was more often seen in the rectification campaigns during the Mao era. For instance, see Benyu Qi, 戚本禹回忆录[A memoir of Qi Benyu] (Zhongyang wenge lishi chubanshe, 2016). See Chapter 8- Phase 5. 22Mai Jun, ‘What not to learn from Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua’, South China Morning Post, (16 February 2016), available at: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1913589/what-not-learn-zhou-yongkang-and-ling-jihua-fall-chinas. (accessed 15 June 2018). 23Mengzhe Shen et.al., ‘中共的政治规矩是什么[What are political protocols of the Party]’, People’s Daily—Overseas Edition, (29 January 2015), (accssed on 15 June 2018) available at: http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2015/0129/c64387-26469431-2.html. 24Shu Wang, ‘妄议中央的中央委员[Central Committee Members who Had Maliciously Dissented againt Party Centre]’, 新京报 [Xin Jing Bao]—Zhengshier Column, (2 June 2017), available at: http://www.sohu.com/a/145522462_203783. (accessed 15 June 2018). 52 L. LI whichwaslaterintroducedtotheParty’s Disciplinary Code. In the campaign, also being added to the category of political discipline and protocol include, inter alia, ‘manifesting deceptive obsequiousness regarding important decisions of the Party Centre对中央方针政策和重大决策部署阳奉阴违’,25 ‘being untruthful and disloyal to the Party对党不忠诚不老实’ and, ‘resisting investigation of the Party organiza- tion对抗组织调查’ .26 In the ideological campaign, the shift of focus from the implementation of the mass-line policy to the policing of political discipline and protocol was gradual; its pace was measured, but its trajectory was clear. At the beginning, the campaign discourse was dominated by anticorruption and the populist mass-line claim to serve the people. It is only after the anticorruption and populist campaign had gained traction that the discourse shifted its focus on protecting the top-down power structure. Sitting at the apex of this power structure was the Party Centre, i.e., the collective Party leadership, which was then transferred to the personal office of Xi Jinping afterwards at the 6th Plenum meeting where Xi was elevated to become the ‘core’ of the leadership. Since then the ‘core’ is regarded as the embodiment of the Party Centre and to preserve the authority of the core 核心意识is to preserve the authority of the Party.

Disciplinary campaign As mentioned above, the PEP is a heritage of Maoist rectification campaign, but with a critical difference: it is mostly ‘therapeutic’ and not punitive. It means that it is mandatory for Party members to participate in the PEP study sessions. However, the PEP, unlike the rectification campaigns in the Mao era, is not the platform for identifying, scrutinizing and denouncing ‘deviants’. Such functions are separated from the ideological campaign and transferred to the disciplinary campaign. The disciplinary campaign here refers to the activities of the investigation, examination, deter- mination and sanctions of conduct that constitutes violations of Party disciplines. Despite their fundamental difference in terms of operating approaches, the disciplinary and ideological campaigns are two integrated prongs of Xi Jinping’s overarching campaign to consolidate power. The two campaigns are not only synchronized but also feed to one another: the ideological campaign defines the political outlook of the disciplinary campaign and the disciplinary campaign provides potency (as well as studying materials) to the ideological campaign.

Eight-provisions As mentioned in the previous section, Xi’s Eight-Provisions covered a wider range of budgetary items than any of the previous campaigns did. Unlike previous ordinances of similar nature, the Eight- Provisions is issued under the name of the Politburo instead of the Central General Oﬃce. The cachet of the Politburo gives the regulation a higher level of authority and compelling power. It also shows that Xi ‘means business’ because a Politburo decision binds its own members as well.27 Within two months after the regulation was issued, all provincial and regional authorities had rolled out detailed implementation plans and regulations, many of which even exceeded the degree of stringency required under the Politburo decision .28 Between 2012 and 2017, the Eight-Provisions remained not

25Shen, ‘中共的政治规矩是什么[What are political protocols of the Party]’. 26Anonymous, ‘违反政治纪律政治规矩的七种主要表现[Seven Examples of Violation of Political Discipline and Political Protocols]’, Hexun News, (20 July 2016), available at: http://news.hexun.com/2016-07-20/185050894.html (accessed 15 June 2018); Lei Chen and Jiayun Chen, ‘反腐败需重视“违反政治纪律”问题 [Anticorruption shall pay attention to violations of political disciplines]’, Legal Daily, (25 December 2015), available at: http://fanfu.people.com.cn/n1/2015/1225/c64371- 27976621.html (accessed on 15 June 2018); Yunda Lu and Yan Zhang, ‘要把严守党的政治纪律和政治规矩排在首位 [We must put aherence to the Party’s political disciplines and political code of conduct in the ﬁrst place]’, CCDI Press Release, (22 October 2015), available at: http://fanfu.people.com.cn/n/2015/1022/c64371-27729681.htm. (accessed 15 June 2018). 27An illustration of this practice can be found in the documentary series Always on the Road produced by the CCDI in the episode entitled ‘Superior Leaders Take the Lead’. 28Anonymous, ‘八项规定30省份出细则[Eight-Points Regulation 30 Provinces Issued Implementation Directives]’, Fazhi Wanbao, (20 January 2013), available at: http://news.hexun.com/2013-01-20/150361948.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 53

only a subject matter for the ideological campaign but also a prioritized item for the disciplinary campaign. In 2013, the ﬁrst year into the campaign, the Commissions of Discipline and Inspection (CDIs) nationwide investigated more than 30,000 Party oﬃcials for violations of Eight-Provisions and applied disciplinary sanctions to 7,600 of them. Minor infractions such as those prohibited by the Eight-Provisions had never been met with serious disciplinary sanctions by the Party on such a large scale before. As shown in Figure 1,29 the enforcement activities spiked in 2014 and were maintained at a high level of intensity through the rest of the campaign.

Anticorruption Anticorruption is one major component of Xi’s disciplinary campaign. With some overlap with the Eight-Provisions campaign, the anticorruption campaign targets a wider range of conduct that involve using public office for private gains, most notably, bribery and embezzlement. The campaign shocked the officialdom and caught sustained attention from international media throughout 2012–2017. A few outstanding features of the campaign are identified. First, the campaign brought about a drastic increase of disciplinary actions. Figure 2 is a time series of the number of offenders who were given disciplinary sanctions by the CDIs under different Party congressional terms from the 12th Congress (1982–1987) to the 18th Congress (2012–2017). As Figure 2 shows, the total number of persons who received disciplinary sanctions had been rather stable before 2012, swinging within the range of 0.5–1 million.30 Then it spiked between 2012 and 2017, almost doubling the last peak in 1997–2002. Second, the higher the rank of officials, the more rigorous the enforcement efforts of the campaign become. Figure 3 tracks the change of the number of disciplined ‘centrally-managed cadres (central- cadres)’ between the 14th and 18th Party congressional terms. Central-cadres are primarily cadres who enjoy deputy ministerial-rank or above and whose appointments are controlled by the Central

80000 70000 71000

60000 58000 50000 49000 48000 43000 40000 34000 30000 30000 28400 23000 20000 10000 7600 0 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Number of persons investigated Number of persons given sanctions

Figure 1. Trend of enforcement of eight-provisions.

29The original data of all ﬁgures presented in this article came from the annual work reports of the CCDI between 1992–2017, available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/. (accessed 5 May 2017). 30The aggregated number of the 16th Party Congressional term is missing in the CCDI report. However, the CCDI published the yearly statistics for 2002–2006. In Figure 2, the author extrapolated the number for 2007, which is added to the number of the previous four years published by the CCDI. The estimated total became the aggregated number for the 16th congressional term in Figure 2. 54 L. LI

1800000

1600000

1400000

1200000

1000000

800000 1537000 600000

400000 846150 650141 733543 669300 668429 518484 200000

0 12TH 13TH 14TH 15TH 16TH 17TH 18TH PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS

Figure 2. Total number of persons disciplined 1982–2017.

500 450 400 350 300 250 440 200 150 100 50 78 98 67 67 0 14th Party 15th Party 16th Party 17th Party 18th Party Congress Congress Congress Congress Congress

above deputy ministerial

Figure 3. Central cadres disciplined.

Organizational Department. As Figure 3 shows, the number of disciplined central-cadres had been kept well under 100 before 2012 and then spiked more than four times during Xi Jinping’s ﬁrst term in 2012–2017. Assuming there has been no drastic ﬂuctuation of the size of its membership since 1984, 31 during the 2012–2017 campaign 10.4 out of 100 central-cadres were given disciplinary sanctions. In comparison, if we include Party-members of lower and no rank, the ratio drops to 1.7%. The same trend applies to members of the Central Committee, the Politburo and the PSC, as shown in Figure 4.

31In this calculation, the base number of central-cadres is 4200. See Rupeng Cai ‘解密中组部[Demysterfying Central Orgnaizational Department]’, Dangzheng luntan (ganbu wenzhai) 11, (2014), pp. 18–19. The total number of Party members is counted as 89,447,000 in this calculation, according to the statistics published by the Central Organization Department, available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2017-06/30/c_1121242479.htm. (accessed 15 June 2018). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 55

PSC member Politburo member CC member 17 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

14TH PARTY 15TH PARTY 16TH PARTY 17TH PARTY 18TH PARTY CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS CONGRESS

Figure 4. Giant tigers.

In addition, Xi’s campaign for the first time in the Party history put a member, albeit retired, of the Politburo Standing Committee, Zhou Yongkang, on trial and subsequently convicted and sentenced him to life imprisonment for corruption-related crimes. Also under fire were the so-called ‘military tigers’, the much privileged military ranking officers. During 2012–2017, a total number of 63 generals (of different insignia) were expelled from the Party due to corruption and sent to military courts. Among these 63 expelled generals, two were former deputy chairmen of the Central Military Commission (only one rank down from Xi Jinping himself in military ranking order) and two were serving members of the same commission when they were removed. An anticorruption campaign of this scale affecting the armed forces is unprecedented in the military history of China. Third, the intensification of enforcement activities was kept at a high level throughout Xi’s first term and made the campaign not only the most impactful but also the most enduring. Figure 5 below shows that the number of disciplinary actions rose steadily from 2013 and was maintained at a high level during the rest of the campaign.

Political discipline Synchronized with the political shift of the ideological campaign, the disciplinary campaign has also elevated the importance of the enforcement of political discipline. In 2015, the Central Inspection Teams (CIT), a subject for the next section, started to focus its inspection on political discipline, called marked-item inspection专项巡视, in selected cases. Later that year, all regular inspections are replaced by marked-item inspections, which are newly deﬁned as political inspections, focusing on inspection over compliance with political discipline and political protocols. Around the same time, the CCDI also started to examine violation of political discipline. By mid- 2017, 15,000 Party members had received punishment for violations of political discipline. To put this ﬁgure in context, the last time political discipline was enforced on a similar scale was the post- Tiananmen purge in 1989–1992, during which time 13,254 party members were punished for violation of political discipline, according to the annual work report submitted by the CCDI in 1992. In other words, the campaign of 2012–2017 is more rigorous on enforcing political discipline than what the Party did immediately after the Tiananmen crisis in 1989. Although the political disciplinary campaign is carried out nationwide and extended to all Party institutions and Party members, its primary targets are Party elites. Figure 6 below highlights the 56 L. LI

450000

400000

350000

300000

250000

200000

150000

100000

50000

0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Number of persons disciplined 182000 232000 336000 415000 372000

Figure 5. Trend of disciplinary sanctions—all party members.

0.254

Centrally-managed cadres 112 440

0.0097

All party members 15000

1545000

0 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000

All party members Centrally-managed cadres Percentage of disciplined party-members who are 0.0097 0.254 also accused of political disciplinary violation For political disciplinary 15000 112 violations For disciplinary violations 1545000 440 (all included)

Figure 6. Ratio of political disciplinary sanctions. uneven distribution of disciplinary punishment between central- cadres and Party members at large for disciplinary violations in general and violations of political disciplines in particular. As the ﬁgure shows, central-cadres account for 0.28% of punishment for disciplinary violations of all categories but the ration rises to 7.4% if we look at political discipline violation alone. To put it JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 57

differently, 25 out of 100 central-cadres who have received disciplinary punishment are punished for political disciplinary violations; whilst less than one per cent received such punishment if we include Party members of lower and no ranks. Furthermore, the higher one’s rank, the more likely one will be scrutinized for political disciplinary violation. All four Politburo members who fell for corruption during 2012–2017 were also denounced for violation of political discipline. Thirteen out of 14 civilian Central Committee members who fell for corruption were also accused for violation of political discipline; and the only one who was not accused for political discipline violation was not prosecuted for corruption. The high level of correlation between political discipline violation and the decision to prosecute may be causal in nature, i.e. the violation of political discipline is the cause for the decision to conduct anticorruption investigation and subsequently to prosecute. However, the correlation may also be non-causal and only shows that officials who violate political discipline are more likely to commit corruption. This, in any event, is the rationale employed by the Party. As shown in Figure 7, the disciplinary campaign against top Party elites has maintained a high level of intensity throughout the campaign. The number of disciplined top Party elites of all categories first spiked in 2014, continued to rise in 2015. It is in 2016 while the enforcement of political discipline has gained a momentum, the 6th Central Committee plenum meeting was held where Xi Jinping was elevated to the ‘core’ of the Party leadership. After the establishment of the ‘core’ status, the rigor of enforcement of political discipline did not recede but was sustained at a similar level and eventually culminated towards the end of the campaign with the fall of Sun Zhengcai, a serving Politburo member.

0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 National-chief 01000 National-deputy 00001 Ministerial-chief 04529 Ministerial-deputy 425373330 Centrally-managed total 430423640

National-chief National-deputy Ministerial-chief Ministerial-deputy Centrally-managed total

Figure 7. Number of disciplined central cadres 2012–2017. 58 L. LI

Expansion of main institutional actors Xi Jinping’s disciplinary campaign in 2012–2017 is an ambitiously designed and effectively executed political project that requires concerted actions from multiple institutions. While the design, monitoring and making of key decisions rests in the Politburo led by Xi Jinping, its implementation relies on key Party functionaries, most importantly, the CCDI as well as ad hoc task forces, such as the Central Inspection Team. These two institutions are not only the main drivers of the campaign but also its beneficiaries. As will be shown below, the relationship between these institutions and the campaign is mutual and dynamic. On the one hand, the institutions continue to adapt and innovate in order to push the campaign forward; on the other hand, the progress of the campaign generates political momentum that allows significant expansion of these two institutions and eventually the transformation of the disciplinary regime at the end of the campaign.

Central inspections teams (CITs) The CITs are joint task-forces supervised directly by the Party Centre. Each team consists of staff drawn from both the CCDI and the Central Organizational Department (COD). Unlike the CCDI, whose disciplinary activities are initiated only in response to reports of disciplinary infraction, the CITs are authorized to perform mandatory inspections without cause. Such inspection is conducted on-site of the inspected institutions and could involve invasive inspective measures, including documents reviews and witness interviews. Unlike the CDIs, which has an exhaustive authority to investigate misconduct of all Party members, the CITs inspect Party officials who hold executive positions only.32 The main purpose of such inspection is to overcome information-asymmetry between the Party Centre and its peripheral institutions and to collect information of negligence, noncompliance and disciplinary violations of Party leaders of the inspected institutions.33 Although the CITs already existed in 2003, they had not made much impact until after 2012. Their previous performance was ineffective because the teams were often captured by local interests or overwhelmed by their workload, i.e. too many institutions to visit, too many items to scrutinize, too many people to interview and too many documents to comb through.34 In 2012–2017, CITs went through a number of reforms. The appointments of inspection team-leaders are no longer permanent. Instead, they are replaced after the completion of each task as an effort to reduce the vulnerability of the CITs to local capture and to prevent collusion between the inspectors and the inspected. The CITs are also made more productive. They are given more specific, problem-finding-oriented instructions. The time they need to spend at each location is reduced, which allow them to inspect more institutions.35 As the CITs pushed the campaign ahead, a new policy was introduced at the 3rd Plenum of the Central Committee in 2014,36 which authorizes the CITs to inspect all institutions under the supervision of the Party Centre, including key Party functionaries and powerful factional strong- holds, such as the Department of Propaganda, Central Secretariat, none of which the CITs had been given access to before. State institutions which were previously exempted from the inspection due to their autonomous status as guaranteed in the Constitution, such as the National People’s Congress and the Supreme People’s Courts, were now also placed under the inspection of the CITs.

32The Party’s Inspection Directive (2017), issued by the Party Centre. Article 13, available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/fgk/law_ display/6336. (accessed 1 January 2017). 33Shuzhen Zhou, ‘巡视工作的历史沿革、现实成就和制度创新[History of the CIT Work, Achievements and Innovation]’, Renmin Wang, (11 July 2014), available at: http://theory.people.com.cn/n/2014/0711/c40531-25270898.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). 34Ibid. 35CCDI, ‘2013年巡视工作综述[An Overview of the CIT Work in 2013]’, CCDI Website, available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/ special/zyxszt/bjzl_zyxs/201402/t20140225_19071.html. (accessed 1 December 2017). 36See Article 36 under Section 10 of the 3rd Plenum Decision of the 18th National Party Congress (2013). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 59

Revamped and rejuvenated, the CITs spearheaded the disciplinary campaign in 2012–2017. Although the CITs are not authorized to use coercive investigative measures and perform disciplinary investigations, their comprehensive inspecting power is sufficient for them to uncover and collect a great volume of information concerning disciplinary infractions committed by the Party leaders under inspection. According to the CCDI, the CITs are accountable for 60 per cent of investigative leads that are used by the CCDI. Similar inspection tours were carried out at provincial and prefectural levels. At the end of 2017, the CITs had inspected 277 Party committees and Party- groups that are directly monitored by the Party Centre and provincial-level inspection teams inspected over 8,362 Party committees and Party-groups under their watch.37 Systemic inspection of this depth and width of coverage is unparallel in Party history. At the end of the campaign, the Party revised the Inspection Directive in 2017 to authorize the staffing of Party inspection offices at all administrative levels,38 which turns the inspection teams into a regular institutional setup with full-time staff. At the time of writing, the first tour of the CITs during Xi Jinping’s second term of office was just announced. This time, the tour started three months earlier than the first tour in Xi’s first term; Fifteen rather than 10 CITs were dispatched; the number of institutions placed under inspection quadrupled.

Central commission of discipline and inspection (CCDI) Unlike the CITs, which was an ad hoc taskforce before the reform, the CCDI has been a permanent Party institution that enforces Party rules and policies. Such a role provides the CCDI the authority to employ coercive investigative methods, including search, seize and desist, restriction of freedom of travel of the suspect as well as detention.39 However, it is important to point out here that the CCDI works under the supervision of the Central Committee. Hence, Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee, who exercise power on behalf of the Central Committee, are also closely involved in the decision-making of the disciplinary process, even though the investigative and examining activities are mainly carried out by the CCDI.40 In 2012–2017, the CCDI had made a number of internal restructuring in order to meet the sharp increase of workload. For a long time, the CDIs have been conducting their investigations by borrowing investigators from the protectorates and other enforcement agencies41. It seemed that the CCDI was not able to recruit more regular staﬀ at the beginning of the campaign, which is presumably due to the budgetary control of bianzhi system.42 Instead, the CCDI dealt with staﬀ- shortage by drastically abdicating from non-disciplinary mandates that it had previously under- taken. In the past, in addition to discipline and inspection, the CDIs participated in many non- disciplinary governance matters, such as public safety inspection, pollution monitoring and reduc- tion etc. Some county CDIs were found having been involved in more than 100 such conferences, committees and task-forces.43 In 2013, the CCDI took the lead and withdrew its membership from 111 out of 125 various deliberation or coordination bodies.44 Lower CDIs followed suit.

37See the CCDI work report to the 19th National Party Congress, available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/xxgk/hyzl/201710/ t20171031_114178.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). 38Party Centre, ‘中共中央关于修改《中国共产党巡视工作条例》的决定 [Decision of the Party Centre to Amend the CCP Directive on Inspection Work]’, (2017). See Article 2, available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/fgk/law_display/6336. (accessed 15 June 2018). 39Ling Li, ‘The Rise of the Discipline and Inspection Commission, 1927–2012: Anticorruption Investigation and Decision-Making in the Chinese Communist Party’, Modern China 42(5), (2016), pp. 447–82. 40Ibid. 41See, for example, CCDI, ‘中纪委公开选调50名处级干部[CCDI Made Annoucement to Transfer-Loan 50 chu-Level Cadres]’, Beijing Youth Daily, (23 April 2015). https://xw.qq.com/news/20150423005362/NEW2015042300536200. (Accessed 15 June 2018). 42Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, ‘Bianzhi and cadre management in China: the case of Yangpu’,inThe Chinese Communist Party in reform, ed., Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Zheng Yongnian (London: Routledge, 2006). Chapter 5. 43Miao Kong, ‘职责外的议事协调机构为何难退出[Why is it diﬃcult to abdicate from the deliberation and coordination bodies]’, Zhongguo jijian jiancha zazhi 8, (2015), pp. 33–35. 60 L. LI

Subsequently, the CCDI was able to open two new divisions to handle its main task: disciplinary monitoring and investigations.45 As the campaign progresses, the CCDI began to expand its reach externally, which concerns the dispatch of CCDI outposts in other Party and state institutions. Such practice was first introduced by the Party in 1982 46 but the CCDI only managed to station dispatched outposts in a small number of marginal institutions. In 2013, the Party authorized the CCDI to establish outposts in all party-state institutions, including powerful Party institutions, such as the Central Party Office, Central Party Department of Organization and Central Party Department of Propaganda.47 These outposts are staffed by and answer only to the CCDI. The staff is allowed access to observe the performance of Party committee or Party-group in the institutions where they are stationed 48 and required to report any disciplinary violation to the CCDI. The other institutional change that has external implications concerns the strengthening of the chain of command between the CCDI and local CDIs.49 In the institutional design of the CDI system, all regional and local CDIs are under the ‘dual leadership’ of both its corresponding Party committee and its superior CDI, i.e. the CDI of the next higher administrative level. In the past, the corresponding Party committee controlled the appointment of CDI leaders and the supervision of the latter’s activities, which places the CDI in a difficult position to supervise the conduct of local officials effectively because they become cohorts of local Party leaders, captured by the latter’s local interests, entangled in local politics, and unwilling and/or unable to investigate local corruption. Starting already before 2012, the CCDI had been imposing itself upon the management of lower CDIs, gradually reclaiming the appointment power and retaining the power to supervise, send instructions to and intervene with the investigative activities of local CDIs on cases of significance.50 During Xi’s Campaign, the trend continued.51

Transformation of the disciplinary regime At the end of his first term, Xi Jinping had completed an unprecedented anticorruption campaign in terms of both scope and tenacity and removed a number of prominent political adversaries in the process. However, the more significant outcome of the campaign is not the number of fallen ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’ but the transformation of the disciplinary regime that Xi would continue to benefit from beyond this campaign. This transformation has three aspects.

Politicization of the disciplinary regime The ﬁrst aspect of the transformation concerns the normalization of the enforcement of political discipline, which is a reversal of the depoliticization process of the Party’s disciplinary regime that started in the 1990s. For two decades, the Party had suspended the enforcement of political

44CCDI, ‘Annual Work Report for the Year of 2013 at the CCDI 3rd Plenum,’ (2014)., CCDI Website Release, (13 January 2014), available at: http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/xxgk/hyzl/201402/t20140208_114169.html. (accessed 15 May 2017). 45Ibid. 46Zhiyong Li, ‘纪检监察派驻机构历史沿革 [History of the Dispatched Offices of CDIs],’ zhongguo jijian jiancha bao, (26 August 2015), available at: http://csr.mos.gov.cn/content/2015-08/26/content_14059.htm. (accessed 26 June 2018). 47Ibid. 48Ibid. 49Hualing Fu, ‘Wielding the Sword: President Xi’s New Anti-Corruption Campaign’,inGreed, corruption, and the modern state, ed., Susan Rose-Ackerman and Paul Felipe Lagunes (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2015), pp. 134–158. 50In 2006, 1/3rd provincial CDI leaders were selected by the CCDI instead of provincial Party committees and that ratio had risen to ½ in 2011–2012. Anonymous, ‘CCDI Making Plans to Implement the Dual-Leadership System中纪委制定纪检双重领导体制’.in东南早报 [South-eastern Morning], (15 November 2013), available at: http://news.163.com/13/1115/10/ 9DNFE50V00014Q4P.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). 51Anonymous, ‘中办印发三个提名考察办法 Central Office Circulates Three Measures on Nomination of CDI Secretaries’, People’s Daily, (28 April 2015), available at: http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n/2015/0428/c117092-26916114.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 61 discipline and dealt with internal power struggles through selective anticorruption investigations.52 For example, the infamous scandal of Bo Xilai erupted when the Party was still under the reign of Hu Jintao. The scandal triggered the expulsion of Bo Xilai from the Party in September 2012, one month before Xi Jinping was inaugurated as the Party’s General-Secretary. In the disciplinary decision, Bo was denounced mainly for corruption-related offenses. His political misconduct was not examined.53 It was only during Xi’s campaign that Bo Xilai’s conduct was reinterpreted and characterized first and foremost as violations of political discipline and protocols.54 The transition from depoliticization to politicization of Party discipline started in the mid-term of the campaign after the 4th Central Committee plenum meeting in October 2014 and completed when ‘political protocol’ were introduced into the Party’s Discipline Sanction Directive at the 6th Central Committee plenum meeting in October 2016. As demonstrated in previous sections, political protocol is a signature term introduced during Xi Jinping’s campaign, which directly targets conduct that undermines or threatens to undermine the authority of the Party Centre, epitomized by the individual office of Xi Jinping after he was elevated to become the ‘core’. This qualitative expansion of political discipline has made a substantial contribution to Xi Jinping’s power-consolidation in an institutionalized manner. In facilitating the politicization process, the ideological and disciplinary campaigns were bundled together to produce a concerted effect. Whilst the former articulates the value, content and consequence of violation of political discipline as it is reiterated and redefined in the course of the campaign, the latter validates the former with immediate enforcement actions. In addition, the campaign has officially linked the investigation of political offense to anticorruption investigation. Before the campaign, the association between politics and anticorruption was obscure and remained as a matter of speculation to most; after the campaign, it has become a pronounced enforcement policy which continues to guide the activities of the CITs and CCDIs in Xi’s second term as this article is written. Formally linking these two offenses will remove any ambiguity of the ‘political’ aspect of the Party’s anticorruption efforts and preserve Xi’s capacity to enforce political loyalty.

Retention of mobilized resources As explained above, the revival of political discipline has great normative and practical value in Xi’s campaign to consolidate power. However, the enforcement of political discipline cannot retain a necessary level of potency without the support of a credible anticorruption campaign. Because violation of political offense alone can only lead to the removal of an official from office, which would not be sufficient to stop the punished official from continuing to exert influence upon public offices through informal networks or to prevent them from making attempts to resuscitate their political careers and/or launch a revenge. An offense of corruption can, however, be met with criminal punishment, which can deprive the physical liberty of an official and terminate his political life. Therefore, anticorruption investigation is the backbone of the policing of political discipline. It has been well studied that anticorruption campaigns directed by the Party can generate a strong deterrence effect in the short term because the mobilized enforcement resources can increase the chance of detection of targeted offenses, which will be translated into deterrence. However, the benefit of a campaign will gradually wear off because the rise of the deterrence level cannot be sustained once the enforcement resources are demobilized after the campaign.55 The

52Li, ‘The Rise of the Discipline and Inspection Commission, 1927–2012: Anticorruption Investigation and Decision-Making in the Chinese Communist Party’. 53Anonymous, ‘中共中央决定给予薄熙来开除党籍、开除公职处分[Central Party decides to revoke Bo Xilai’s Party Membership and Expel him from Oﬃce]’, Xinhua News, (28 September 2012), available at: http://fanfu.people.com.cn/n/ 2012/0928/c64371-19147850.html. (accessed 15 June 2018). 54Zuyi Zhong, ‘坚决维护党中央权威[Unwavering Commitment to Preserve the Authority of Party Centre]’, Qiushi 18, (2015), pp. 62–62. 62 L. LI

2012–2017 campaign is distinctive because it is concluded with a reform initiative which will allow the CCDI to retain not only the resources that have been mobilized for the campaign but also additional resources that had not been mobilized during the campaign. This reform initiative concerns the establishment of the National Supervision Commission (NSC), which is an upgrade of the Ministry of Supervision that shared its offices with the CCDI. To gain a full understanding of the NSC reform requires a lengthy explanation of the Byzantine institutional structure of the party-state, which is not possible here. To risk oversimplification, the NSC can be understood as the ‘front office’ of the CCDI, which means whatever resources that the NSC has gained from the reform will be enjoyed by the CCDI as well. Among other things, the most consequential aspect of the reform is that it allows the CDIs to factually annex 1/5 of the agents and staff of the procuratorates nationwide.56 An inter-institutional personnel transfer of this scale is unprecedented in the recent history of the People’s Republic of China. This annexation will solve one of the chronical problems of the CDIs: a shortage of investigative agents. As mentioned earlier, in the past, the CCDI had been loaning agents from other state institutions. However, the loaned agents are temporary in nature and limited in number, which cannot meet the demand of intensified anticorruption tasks. In addition, relying on ad hoc loaned staff also adds to the coordination costs and makes it difficult for the CDIs to maximize the benefit from on-the-job training of the agents if they only work on the tasks temporarily. By converting the temporarily mobilized enforcement forces into regular ones enables the Party to retain the enforcement rigor beyond this single campaign.

Simplification of evidence production procedure Before the reform, anticorruption investigation operated on two-tracks, one by the CDI, a Party institution, and one by the procuratorates, a state institution. While the procuratorate was authorized to initiate its own investigation in theory, most anticorruption investigations concerning Party members, especially those enjoy ranks, had been initiated by the CDIs. As a part of its job, the CDI determines whether an offense under its investigation constitutes a crime. If the conclusion is positive, the CDI will transfer the case to the corresponding procuratorate for prosecution. The CDI, as a Party institution, enjoys ‘extra-legal’ authority and can apply coercive investigative measures in its investigation. However, it is not a state institution and the evidence it had collected in the course of its investigation is not immediately admissible in courts according to the current criminal procedural law. Therefore, before the reform, the procuratorate had been tasked not only to conduct prosecution but also its own investigation, converting the evidence handed over by the CDI to evidence admissible by courts. After the reform, this redundant ‘double-investigation’ will be rendered unnecessary, thus significantly reducing the investigating time and resources. After this reform initiative was announced, it has caused great concern among legal academics in and out of China because of the magnitude of its legal implications upon the country’s constitutional framework.57 It is particularly disconcerting that the new disciplinary regime will increase the risk of abuse of investigative power since the power will become even more concentrated in institutions directly run by the Party with no outside scrutiny. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of power-consolidation, it is without doubt that the reform will multiply

55Melanie Manion, Corruption by design: Building clean government in mainland China and Hong Kong (Havard University Press, 2004), pp. 155–200; Wedeman, Andrew. ‘Anticorruption Campaigns and the Intensiﬁcation of Corruption in China’, Journal of Contemporary China 14(42), (2005), pp. 93–116. 56Wenying Li, ‘An Interview with Wu Jianxiong by the Paper News,’ The Paper, (4 January 2017), https://news.qq.com/a/ 20170104/023356.htm. (accessed 15 June 2018). 57Qianhong Qin, ‘我国监察体系的宪制思考[Examination of the constitutional framework of the National Supervision Legal System]’, China Law Review Wechat Online, (8 January 2017), available at: http://mini.eastday.com/mobile/170108004753420. html. (accessed 15 June 2018). JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 63 the CCDI’s anticorruption investigative capacities and increase President Xi Jinping’s leverage to impose political loyalty and compliance upon Party oﬃcials in a manner that none had achieved before.

Conclusion This article traced the process of President Xi Jinping’s campaign during his first term in office in 2012–2017 and illustrated how these campaigns have advanced the power-consolidation process. This article reaches the following conclusions. First, the power-consolidation process is two- pronged, driven by the ideological and disciplinary campaigns. The two campaigns are not only synchronized but also feed into one another: the ideological campaign defines the political outlook of the disciplinary campaign and the disciplinary campaign provides potency to the ideological campaign. Second, a shift of emphasis from anticorruption to policing political conduct was gradually introduced in both the ideological and disciplinary campaigns around the midterm and became intensified afterwards. The intensification of the enforcement of political discipline in both campaigns coincides with Xi Jinping’s advancement of power. Third, the most significant outcome of Xi Jinping’s campaign is not the numbers of fallen tigers and flies but the paradigm- change of the Party’s disciplinary regime that was introduced at the end of campaign. Such change has three aspects: first, the reversal of the depoliticization process of the Party’s disciplinary regime; second, the retention of temporarily mobilized anticorruption resources; and third the simplification of evidence production procedure. The combined result is a considerable expansion of the CCDI’s anticorruption investigative capacity and a significant increase Xi Jinping’s leverage to impose political loyalty and compliance upon Party officials in the future.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) of Vienna for her generous fellowship, which allowed me to ﬁnalize this manuscript. Earlier versions of this manuscript were presented at Oxford University, Wuhan University, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Chinese University of Politics and Law, Peking University, Australian National University, for which the author wishes to thank Matthew Erie, JIN Wei, LI Hua, CHEN Baifeng, QIN Qianhong, WANG Qinghua, PENG Chun and Sue Trevaskes for providing the forums. The author also wishes to thank Andrew Wedeman for his valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ling Li obtained her doctoral degree from Leiden University Law School in 2010. She was a senior research fellow at the US-Asia Law Institute of New York University School of Law during 2010–2015. She has been teaching Chinese studies at the University of Vienna since 2015. She published extensively on corruption, anticorruption, courts and the political legal system of China. Her current research interest concerns Chinese politics and law and how politics and law are integrated to secure the Party’s monopolistic political control of the state as well as to maximize managerial eﬃcacy.