China: Anti-corruption and the paradox of political power

Luo Liping, a senior official in the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China’s highest anti-graft body, announced Sunday that the central government had drawn up plans for a new spate of anti-corruption investigations for the coming year. Luo said the CCDI’s goal is the inspection of all of the 280 or so organizations responsible to the central government by the end of 2017. This colossal target set includes provincial governments, central government ministries, state-owned enterprises, financial institutions and regulators, and other government-sponsored institutions. Luo noted that since 2012, the CCDI has performed inspections on 149 of these organizations — little more than half of the total.

To meet its objective, the CCDI is bracing to conduct more than 100 rounds of inspections. This is a major expansion of the campaign — the equivalent of conducting nearly 70 percent of total inspections to date, only within a single year. Luo directly addressed the difficulties of such a rigorous campaign, noting the complexity of the task and the limits of the existing inspections teams. He did confirm, however, that the commission is developing innovative methods to make sure all the inspections are complete before the 19th Party Congress.