Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) warned officials they must fight the increasingly serious problem of corruption or risk ruining the country, though he offered no specific new proposals on how to combat the scourge.
In a weekend speech that was carried yesterday by Xinhua news agency, Xi told the new 25-member politburo that the party must be vigilant against graft, noting that corruption in other countries in recent years has prompted major social unrest and the collapse of governments.
“The large number of facts tells us that if the problem of corruption becomes increasingly severe, it will lead to the ruin of the party and the country!” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.
“In recent years, within our party there have been serious discipline violations, the nature of which has been very bad, with a terrible political impact, causing much alarm,” said Xi, who took over as China’s Communist Party leader on Thursday.
Xi’s language was unusually direct for a top leader, indicating his seriousness about the problem, but his speech gave few indications of how the party could better police itself, said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University.
“He used strong words. It was clearly a warning: ‘We have to do something about this,’” Cabestan said. “Clearly, for him, the crux of the matter is corruption. The trouble is, of course, that he doesn’t tell us much about what are going to be the efficient tools or weapons he will put together to fight corruption.”
Xi urged officials at all levels to obey anti-corruption regulations and to better limit their relatives or associates from abusing their influence for personal gain, but he gave no indication of any independent mechanism for investigating graft.
The party, which controls courts, police and prosecutors, has proved feeble in policing itself yet does not want to undermine its control by empowering an independent body to do so. Some officials have been required to report income, real estate holdings and other wealth to their superiors since 2010, but the measure has done little to staunch the graft.
A slew of corruption investigations have targeted high-level leaders in recent years, most notably former politburo member Bo Xilai (薄熙來), who was purged this year after an aid disclosed that his wife murdered a British businessman. Bo is accused of obstructing the investigation into the murder as well as unspecified corruption while in office.
Foreign media reports in recent weeks also have documented massive wealth accumulated by Chinese leaders’ families.
Xi took over as China’s top leader last Thursday when he assumed the posts of party leader and head of the military commission from outgoing leader Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Hu will retain the title of president — the ceremonial head of state — until next spring when he hands that position over to Xi as well.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
RSS