Xi Jinping is immensely powerful. Why can’t he stamp out corruption?

After securing an unprecedented third term as Communist Party chief in October 2022, Xi Jinping led senior officials on a pilgrimage to the party’s “red holy city”. His choice of destination was Yan’an in north-western China, where Mao Zedong’s guerrillas were once based. It was a clue to Mr Xi’s priorities for the years ahead. He told his entourage that Yan’an was where the party had forged its fighting spirit and committed itself to the “correct political direction”.

But Yan’an’s legacy is also dark. There in the early 1940s, encircled by Japanese and Nationalist forces, Mao launched the party’s first great “rectification” campaign, crushing rivals and tightening his grip on power. What began with compulsory study of Mao’s teachings soon devolved into a paranoid purge: of the 40,000 revolutionaries present, 15,000 were branded traitors. Torture was common. Many were executed or driven to suicide.

When Mr Xi talks of promoting the “Yan’an spirit”, he is not suggesting a need for similar bloodletting—Mao’s orgy of violence does not feature in official mythology about the place. But it is intended as a call for ideological purity, including a rejection of corrupt and hedonistic behaviour. Mr Xi has been waging a fierce war against graft since he took power in 2012, jailing thousands of officials and punishing millions of others. He has called this a “self-revolution” of the party, involving “turning the blade inward”. The latest targets, announced on January 24th, were the two top generals, including the armed forces’ most senior uniformed officer, Zhang Youxia. They are among dozens of generals he has purged in recent years, leaving a tattered high command.

Mr Xi promised early in his tenure to build a party in which officials “dare not, cannot and do not want to be corrupt”. And to be sure, ordinary folk say Mr Xi has reduced the sort of brazen street-level graft that was ubiquitous under previous leaders. But in 2025 the authorities investigated over 1m people for corruption and political indiscipline, more than in any other year of Mr Xi’s rule. Also last year, 983,000 were punished (see chart 1). The number of investigations was at least 15% higher than in 2024 and 60% more than in 2023. Over seven years ago Mr Xi declared a “crushing victory” in his war on graft. Then in January last year he acknowledged that the party had not yet tamed it. “Even under strong pressure, some people still dare to act recklessly,” said the People’s Daily, a party newspaper.

Look first at the 2m-strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as the armed forces are called. The PLA is the party’s army and Mr Xi is its commander-in-chief. Even so, its tight networks based on personal loyalty, its ability to operate secretly and its control of vast resources have traditionally made it a breeding-ground for corruption. Big increases in its budget and a kit-buying splurge over the past two or three decades have opened up new opportunities for graft. All units have political commissars who are supposed to watch out for corruption as well as make sure that soldiers are indoctrinated with Mr Xi’s wisdom. But their supervision can be lax.

The buying of posts in the armed forces remains a problem. According to the Wall Street Journal, high-ranking officers who were briefed about the investigation of General Zhang were told that he had allegedly helped to promote a former defence minister, Li Shangfu, in exchange for large bribes. Mr Li was dismissed and stripped of his rank as general after disappearing from public view in 2023, just months after taking office. Last year MERICS, a think-tank in Berlin, said recent purges in the PLA suggested that Mr Xi’s efforts to stem corruption in the PLA soon after he came to power had failed. “Ranks and promotions were routinely up for sale, and bribery was rampant,” it reported.

Promotion-buying is also common among civilian officials. In 2024 a boss of the national fire administration was convicted of selling positions to his junior officers. Between 2016 and 2023, a fire chief in the southern city of Beihai paid more than 1.3m yuan ($186,925) to be bumped up the ladder. To raise such money, some officials sell procurement contracts or, in the case of the fire brigade, overlook building-code violations in return for kickbacks. Often they sell lesser posts to fund the purchase of more senior jobs for themselves.

One reason investigations are surging is that Mr Xi is pushing his campaign further into the lower ranks. The hunt for misbehaving members has stepped up across the board and is ensnaring hundreds of thousands of lowly officials as well as ordinary party members such as businesspeople and NGO workers. As a share of total investigations, bribery and gift-giving crimes have risen. Between April and September, a monthly average of 7,271 people were punished for accepting or giving bribes of cash or other valuables (see chart 2). In the same period ten years earlier, the number was 586. Analysis by Andrew Wedeman of Georgia State University suggests that by 2024 almost all of those punished for giving or accepting gifts became corrupt or continued their crooked dealings after Mr Xi came to power.

This is in spite of penalties that are getting tougher. In 2014 only about 30% of cases led to punishments such as prison or expulsion from the party, which means exclusion from most government jobs. Others implicated had to write self-criticisms and undergo “education”. Today more than 70% of cases end in the harder sanctions, according to the Organisation for Research on China and Asia, a Delhi-based think-tank. The number of suspects held without charge in the hope that they will confess climbed by 46% in 2024. Detention usually involves solitary confinement. Torture is rampant. At least five prominent entrepreneurs died by suicide after being detained between April and July, while others have died in custody.

So why do officials take the risk? In some cases, the rise in investigations is linked to gushes of government spending in strategic sectors, such as computer chips and military procurement. Anti-graft police disciplined more than 60,000 people in the pharmaceutical industry in 2024, for example, as China’s biotech sector benefited from government support. But corruption is not always motivated by greed, notes Jonathan Czin of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank. It can be about self-preservation. Officials often feel pressured to accept cash or face suspicion from their peers that they are a rat.

Paradoxically, notes a Chinese scholar, Mr Xi’s campaign may have deepened a kind of “small-circle politics”, with fearful officials relying even more on close personal networks and reinforcing an informality in which corruption thrives. Gifts, such as expensive liquor, are a “signal” by which the recipient “immediately understands there is a request, even if nobody says it openly”, the academic argues. An official’s decision to accept the gift or return it is a sign of trust in the giver. “They would rather favour someone they know well than take a risk on an unknown actor.”

Mr Xi portrays corruption as an existential threat to the party. Whether a local mayor fails at implementing a central diktat or accepts money from a property developer, both are signs of an ideological and moral failing and, ultimately, disloyalty to Mr Xi. In his telling, such types were responsible for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That history haunts Mr Xi. He often refers to the Soviet collapse.

So he persists, despite the risk of making enemies. Last year an online furore erupted over arbitrary detentions and deaths in custody; in a speech published in November Mr Xi rebuked party members for saying the campaign was “damaging the party’s image”. In fact, he said, “scraping the bone to remove poison will not only not damage the party’s image and prestige, but will actually enhance them.” He is doubtless anticipating a lot more time in the operating theatre. ■