China’s anti-corruption campaign under President Xi Jinping has expanded far beyond its original focus on economic crime, increasingly becoming a system for scrutinising how officials exercise power, follow central directives, manage their careers and conduct their private lives.
An analysis by the South China Morning Post of 423 disciplinary investigations involving “centrally managed” cadres between 2013 and 2025 shows how the definition of corruption has broadened. The officials, most of whom were ranked at deputy provincial or ministerial level or above, were overseen through the Communist Party’s Central Organisation Department. The findings were released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), with most cases subsequently passed to judicial authorities.
The cases are not court judgments and do not provide a complete account of the evidence held by investigators. Rather, they represent public explanations by the authorities of why an official was considered to have crossed a red line. Bribery remains a central legal basis for criminal cases, but political loyalty, discipline, policy implementation and cadre management have increasingly become part of the anti-corruption framework.
Of the 423 officials analysed, 93.4 per cent were accused of using their positions to seek benefits for others, 88.7 per cent were accused of taking bribes and 67.1 per cent were accused of accepting cash or gifts. Economic corruption and integrity violations accounted for 52.4 per cent of allegations from 2013 to 2017. That figure fell to 43.2 per cent between 2018 and 2022 before rising to 46.4 per cent from 2023 to 2025.
The shift, however, does not indicate that bribery has become less important. Instead, it points to a wider understanding of what constitutes official wrongdoing. Qian Jingyuan, an assistant professor of political science at Boston College, described the dual nature of the campaign by saying that, from Beijing’s perspective, corruption is viewed not only as an economic crime but also as a “political sin”. Public announcements, he said, increasingly emphasise the political nature of wrongdoing before addressing the economic elements that often form the basis for criminal indictments.
The expansion is particularly visible in allegations concerning political security and risk. Such accusations appeared in 18.9 per cent of cases between 2013 and 2017, before rising sharply to 64.5 per cent from 2018 to 2022 and remaining high at 59.3 per cent from 2023 to 2025. Allegations have included seeking political patronage, forming cliques and factions, damaging the political environment, saying one thing while doing another, associating with political swindlers and engaging in superstitious activities.
At the same time, scrutiny of officials’ behaviour during investigations has intensified. Allegations involving concealed personal matters, dishonesty during interviews or resistance to investigation appeared in 48.4 per cent of cases in the first period. The figure rose to 82.3 per cent between 2018 and 2022 and reached 88.6 per cent in the latest period.
Governance itself has also become a major focus. Allegations concerning failure to implement central decisions, other governance problems, departures from the “new development philosophy”, abuse of power and interference in market, judicial and law enforcement activities increased from 23.9 per cent of cases in 2013-17 to 53.2 per cent in 2018-22 and 73.6 per cent in 2023-25.
The campaign has simultaneously moved deeper into personnel management. Cases involving irregularities in selection and appointments or post-retirement misconduct increased from 39 per cent in the first period to 60 per cent in the latest. Jiangnan Zhu, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, has described the buying and selling of public-sector jobs as “personnel corruption”, arguing that it can allow money to replace competence and loyalty in determining who enters or rises through public office.
The reach of supervision now extends beyond individual officials. Across the sample, 49.2 per cent of cadres were accused of improper family conduct, failing to supervise or educate relatives, or involvement in family-based corruption. The framework therefore encompasses officials’ families, subordinates and political networks alongside their own conduct.
The institutional machinery supporting this wider campaign has also expanded. In 2018, China amended its constitution to establish supervisory commissions at every level and enacted the Supervision Law. The commissions work with discipline inspectors and extend oversight to officials who exercise public power, while the expanded detention system known as liuzhi replaced the party’s largely informal shuanggui disciplinary system.
Yet analysts caution against interpreting the campaign as a complete transformation of China’s party-state bureaucracy. Qian said there was no clear evidence that the campaign itself had reshaped the general structure of the system, although it had produced large-scale personnel changes, altered promotion standards and incentives, and established institutions designed to tighten bureaucratic control.
The broader direction is nevertheless clear. Economic performance and policy outcomes remain important, but political loyalty, integrity, control over subordinates and family members, and implementation of central directives now carry greater weight in assessing officials. As Qian put it, the widening definition of corruption may encourage some officials to “lie flat”, becoming reluctant to experiment with policies that could cross boundaries set by higher authorities.
For Beijing, the challenge is increasingly not simply how to punish corruption, but where to draw the line between tighter political control and the initiative expected from the officials responsible for governing the country.
