Chinese leader Xi Jinping is escalating his long-running anti-corruption campaign, pressing the Communist Party’s discipline apparatus to act with greater intensity as Beijing prepares to roll out its next five-year economic plan. Nearly one million people were punished by party inspectors last year, a record figure that reflects both the scale of the crackdown and Xi’s determination to compel strict adherence to his agenda, according to figures cited by The Wall Street Journal.
At a recent conclave of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Xi portrayed corruption as a fundamental threat to the party and the state, calling on inspectors to exercise their supervisory powers more aggressively. He stressed that the central leadership’s decisions must be implemented “resolutely and effectively,” framing discipline not only as a moral imperative but as a mechanism to ensure policy execution at a time of mounting economic pressure.
Official data released over the weekend showed that 983,000 people were disciplined in 2025, a 10.6 per cent increase from an already record-breaking year in 2024 and the highest annual total since the party began publishing such data roughly two decades ago. The Wall Street Journal noted that the figures underscore how Xi’s campaign has become a permanent feature of governance rather than a time-limited clean-up effort.
State media amplified Xi’s message by highlighting what it described as persistent bureaucratic inertia across the country. In a front-page commentary, the People’s Daily criticised officials who pursue fashionable projects in sectors favoured by Beijing, such as semiconductors and electric vehicles, without regard for local conditions. Such behaviour, it warned, distorts policy intent and undermines results, reinforcing the case for tighter internal discipline.
At the same time, the leadership acknowledges that years of relentless purges have made many officials risk-averse, contributing to sluggish decision-making within the party’s roughly 100 million members. Xi has attempted to address this by assuring cadres that honest mistakes will be tolerated, yet enforcement statistics suggest continued frustration at the centre. From January to November last year, more than 140,800 people were punished for offences linked to policy inaction, recklessness or deceit, surpassing the total recorded in 2024.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency has framed these cases as evidence of the difficulty Beijing faces in translating top-level directives into action at the grassroots. Officials have been warned not to reinterpret or dilute central policies and to demonstrate a clear understanding of the leadership’s strategic intentions, making loyalty a core metric of performance.
Since Xi launched the anti-corruption drive shortly after taking power in late 2012, more than 7.2 million people have been punished. While the campaign has curbed some of the most blatant forms of graft, The Wall Street Journal has observed that it has also served to consolidate Xi’s authority to a degree unseen in China for decades. In recent years, inspectors have targeted entire sectors, including finance, healthcare and defence, and have brought down senior officials, executives and military commanders.
Some of those ensnared were once viewed as close to Xi. He Weidong, formerly China’s second-ranking general and a Politburo member, was expelled from the party on corruption charges in October, a move that sent shockwaves through the political and military establishment. Another Politburo figure, former regional leader Ma Xingrui, has missed a series of senior meetings, leaving the body with fewer publicly active members and fuelling speculation about his status.
The campaign has been reinforced through public messaging as well as punishment. State television recently aired a documentary series featuring confessional interviews with disgraced officials, describing how corruption often takes root through “encirclement hunting”, in which business figures cultivate officials and their families before extracting political favours.
Even the watchdog overseeing the crackdown has felt its impact. Attendance at the latest CCDI conclave was unusually low, a detail highlighted by The Wall Street Journal in its review of participation data. Many of the absentees were senior military officers whose careers have come under scrutiny amid an ongoing shake-up of the defence establishment.
