One day before a key meeting of China’s anti-graft watchdog, the state broadcaster aired a program on how grassroots corruption is being crushed, dispelling any notion that China is losing its grip on graft.
The first of four episodes of Fighting Corruption for the People aired on Sunday night, focusing on petty corruption cases including a northeastern primary school director profiting from kickbacks from on-campus meals and an official in rural Sichuan Province taking bribes from farm project contractors.
Last year, China was rocked by a surge of corruption probes ensnaring individuals from a vice central bank governor to a former chairman of its biggest oil and gas company, adding to unease in an economy struggling to secure a firm footing and a society grappling with a fading sense of wealth.
Photo: Reuters
The list of individuals also included a top military official, Miao Hua (苗華), an admiral, whose fall from grace comes at a time when China is trying to modernize its armed forces and boost its battle readiness.
To quash any thought the ruling Chinese Communist Party helmed by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is behind the curve, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection declared in the past few days that a record 58 “tigers,” or senior officials, were probed last year.
The anti-graft watchdog was to gather from yesterday through tomorrow to firm up its tasks for the year, state media said.
Last year, 47 of the officials probed were at the vice-ministerial level or above, including former Chinese minister of agriculture and rural affairs Tang Renjian (唐仁健) and former Chinese General Administration of Sport director Gou Zhongwen (苟仲文).
Even retired high-ranking officials were not spared, such as Wang Yilin (王宜林), former chairman and party secretary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.
The corruption crackdown would continue, Georgia State University professor Andrew Wedeman said.
“I don’t see how Xi could afford to back off at this point,” Wedeman said. “A dozen years after he set out to cleanse the senior ranks, Xi is still finding widespread corruption at the top of the party-state and the PLA” (the Chinese People’s Liberation Army).
The PLA has been swept by a wave of purges since 2023. Li Shangfu (李尚福) was removed as minister of national defense after seven months. His predecessor Wei Fenghe (魏鳳和) was expelled from the party for “serious violations of discipline,” a euphemism for corruption.
“It would thus seem that the ‘pool’ Xi is drawing on to replace corrupt officials is also full of corrupt officials,” Wedeman said. “If Xi is promoting corrupt officials, this suggests the party’s internal vetting apparatus is not functioning effectively or, more seriously, is itself corrupted.”
China admits its anti-corruption efforts face new challenges, with traditional forms of corruption such as accepting cash becoming more insidious.
“A businessman might offer me money directly, and I’d refuse,” said Fan Yifei (范一飛), a former vice governor of the People’s Bank of China who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
“But if he gives it in the form of stocks or other assets, not directly to me, but to my family, that’s a whole different matter,” state media quoted Fan as saying.
Even the lowly “flies” and “ants” in China’s vast bureaucracy would not be spared in the corruption fight, as Sunday’s television program showed.
“Compared to the ‘tigers’ far away, the public feels more strongly about the corruption around them,” Sun Laibin (孫來賓), a professor at Peking University’s School of Marxism, said on the program.
The anti-corruption fight must reach the “hearts” of the masses, so that they can “deeply feel” the care of the party, he said.
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS