China’s corruption watchdog meets
The Chinese Communist Party’s internal corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), will meet for its seventh plenary session on Thursday. The meeting will consolidate this year’s plans as part of President Xi Jinping’s widespread crackdown on corruption.
Since November 2012, ‘intra-party supervision’ by the CCDI has resulted in the arrest of 38 officials at the national level and more than 7,200 across the country. Even high-level officials have been prosecuted, including former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, who was given a life sentence in 2015.
Friday’s session will be shaped by recent Politburo statements, which insist anti-corruption agencies are subject to supervision from the Party and state media. At the same time, the state media was among the first to be named as targets of the CCDI’s investigations in 2016.
By engineering reciprocal supervision, Xi will be able to further consolidate power over his popular anti-graft campaign and gain recognition as the core leader of the party, a title once held by Mao Zedong and bestowed on Xi in October.