The latest anti-corruption dismissals raise fresh questions about power struggles and elite instability inside China’s ruling party
Another Day, Another Purge in Xi’s China
Two senior Chinese Communist Party officials have been dismissed and placed under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law,” the standard CCP formulation that covers everything from corruption to political disloyalty in a system where the distinction between the two is often deliberately blurred. The dismissals continue a pattern of elite-level purges that has characterized Xi Jinping’s rule since he consolidated power in 2012, eliminating more than a million officials at various levels through a campaign that began as anti-corruption enforcement and has evolved into something that looks increasingly like a permanent purge mechanism designed to keep the CCP elite in a state of perpetual insecurity and therefore loyalty to the paramount leader.
The Anti-Corruption Campaign That Never Ends
Xi Jinping launched his anti-corruption campaign with genuine popular support. Corruption in the CCP had reached levels so severe that ordinary citizens openly discussed the routine demands for bribes from officials and the grotesque wealth accumulation of politically connected families. The campaign’s early targets, including former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang and former CMC vice chairmen Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, were figures whose corruption was real, documented, and genuinely damaging to public trust in governance. Prosecuting them was genuinely popular and genuinely justified.
When Anti-Corruption Becomes a Political Weapon
The problem that independent analysts have consistently identified is that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has no institutional independence. There is no independent prosecutor, no independent judiciary, no impartial oversight mechanism to distinguish between genuine corruption cases and politically motivated prosecutions of officials whose primary offense is association with rival power factions or insufficient personal loyalty to Xi. Human Rights Watch China reporting has documented how the campaign has been used against business figures, academics, journalists, and civil society leaders who have no connection to government corruption but have been swept up in broadly defined investigations that serve political objectives. The result is a system in which every official lives under the permanent threat of investigation, creating exactly the culture of fearful compliance that any authoritarian leader seeking to eliminate independent power centers would desire.
What the Two Sessions Context Adds
The timing of these particular dismissals, occurring during the period surrounding the annual National People’s Congress sessions, adds additional political significance. The NPC meetings are normally showcases of carefully choreographed CCP unity, designed to project an image of confident, coordinated governance. Purges during this period break with that choreography in ways that suggest either the cases were too urgent to hold, that Xi wanted to make a specific point about his willingness to act at any moment, or that factional tensions within the leadership are operating on a timeline that does not conveniently accommodate the political calendar.
The Opacity That Makes Analysis Difficult
One of the fundamental challenges of analyzing CCP elite politics is the opacity that the system deliberately maintains. Chinese state media reports on purges in formulaic language without specifying actual charges in any detail that would allow independent verification. The proceedings are not public. The outcomes, invariably guilty verdicts with sentences calibrated to the political significance of the target, are predetermined in all cases that reach public announcement. Freedom House rates China’s political system as deeply not free, with no meaningful accountability mechanisms between those who hold power and those who are governed by it. The opacity of the purge system is not accidental. Transparency would make the political motivations of the campaign visible. Opacity allows each purge to be presented as an act of law enforcement rather than what it often is: an act of political elimination.
What Elite Instability Means for Policy
Democracies that interact with China need to understand that the CCP’s surface appearance of stability and unity conceals genuine elite competition that has real consequences for policy. Officials who are purged take their knowledge, relationships, and policy commitments with them into political oblivion. Policies associated with purged officials may be abandoned or reversed not because they have been evaluated and found wanting but because continuing them would imply endorsement of the person who advocated them. Brookings China scholars have documented how this dynamic creates unpredictability in Chinese foreign and economic policy that makes long-term strategic planning by trading partners and adversaries alike significantly more difficult. Democratic governments dealing with Beijing should never mistake the authoritarian system’s outward confidence for genuine stability. The purge mechanism is a symptom of exactly the opposite: a system that must coerce loyalty because it cannot earn it.
The Endgame of Permanent Purging
History offers instructive examples of what happens to political systems that rely on permanent purge mechanisms to maintain leadership authority. Stalin’s USSR consumed its own most capable military commanders on the eve of World War II. Mao’s Cultural Revolution destroyed much of China’s educated class and experienced bureaucracy. As Xi’s campaign continues into its second decade, the CCP is accumulating a deficit of competent, experienced, independently motivated officials that will eventually manifest in policy failures that no amount of propaganda can disguise. Foreign Policy analysis has consistently warned that the very mechanisms Xi uses to concentrate power are simultaneously degrading the governance quality of the system he is concentrating power within. The purges are not a sign of strength. They are a sign of the fundamental fragility of a system that cannot survive honest accountability.
Tsz Yan
Environment & Public Policy Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: tszyan@appledaily.uk
Tsz Yan is an environment and public policy journalist specializing in climate issues, urban planning, and environmental governance. She completed her journalism education at a top-tier UK journalism institution, where she trained in policy analysis, data-driven reporting, and environmental journalism ethics.
Her professional experience includes reporting for Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese publications on pollution control, infrastructure development, environmental regulation, and sustainability policy. Tsz Yan’s reporting integrates scientific data, regulatory documents, and interviews with experts and affected communities.
She has worked in newsroom settings where environmental reporting intersects with economic and political pressures, giving her practical experience in verification and balanced framing. Her stories are known for accurate interpretation of technical data and clear attribution.
Tsz Yan’s authority comes from consistent publication within reputable news organizations and adherence to transparency and correction protocols. At Apple Daily UK, she produces reliable environmental journalism grounded in evidence, professional training, and public-interest reporting.
