China’s top graft-buster yesterday launched a scathing attack on Chinese Communist Party members, writing that the party’s political culture remained “unhealthy” and governance weak even after five years of renewed efforts to fight the problem.
The comments by Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) Secretary Wang Qishan (王岐山) came after sources said a senior official who was considered a contender for promotion at the party’s 19th National Congress to be held this autumn is being investigated for “discipline violations.”
The anti-graft inspections that have begun since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office five years ago routinely discovered the same problems, Wang said.
“All of the issues discovered during the inspections reflect the weakening of party leadership, shortcomings in party building and insufficient efforts to strictly enforce party discipline,” Wang wrote in the party’s official People’s Daily.
“Party concepts are faint, organization is lax and discipline flabby. The root is in the party’s internal political life being not serious and unhealthy,” he said.
Wang has been the chief enforcer of Xi’s anti-corruption drive and is widely considered as the party’s most powerful figure after Xi.
Despite an unwritten retirement age rule suggesting he should step down this year, Wang, who turns 69 this month, could be kept on by Xi as head of a new National Supervisory Commission that would combine the powers of several graft-fighting bodies, sources with ties to the leadership said.
The fight against corruption would remain “a long process,” Wang said in his piece.
Critics of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign have long accused it of being an instrument to sideline political rivals.
Former Chongqing party secretary Sun Zhengcai (孫政才), who was abruptly removed from office on Saturday, had been seen as a potential candidate for elevation and as a possible future premier, but his star had waned since coming under criticism from the anti-corruption watchdog.
The government has yet to say what has happened to Sun.
Sources with ties to the leadership and foreign diplomats said Sun has been out of favor after the CCDI criticized Chongqing authorities in February for not doing enough to root out lingering “poisonous” influence from disgraced former Chongqing secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙來).
Bo was also a contender for top leadership before being jailed for life in 2013 in a corruption scandal.
Xi’s corruption crackdown has seen dozens of senior officials jailed, reaching into the party’s upper echelons.
Xi has warned that the problem is so serious it could affect the party’s grip on power.
Wang agreed with that assessment in his article, writing: “The greatest challenge to our party ruling for a long time and ruling fully is effective supervision.”
Exposing problems shows the party’s confidence in facing them, Wang added.
“Putting the problems that objectively exist out there shows a high level of self-confidence and staunch focus, winning over the faith, trust and confidence of the people in the party’s center,” he wrote, referring to the party’s top leadership.
The crackdown has not just been focused on issues like bribery and using public money to fund lavish lifestyles. It has also taken aim at those whose political loyalty is found lacking or who publicly express doubt about party policies.
Wang said some party members practiced “political nihilism,” casting aside their beliefs, while others were guilty of “phoney politics,” seeing the word of the leadership as nothing more than slogans.
The party has long said it alone can deal with corruption, dismissing any calls for an independent body separate from the party to tackle the issue.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
RSS