In China, the apparatus for monitoring and repressing corruption has not been idle in 2023. It is even a record year for the dismissal of officials accused of having deviated from party rules. And retirees are not spared.
3 mins
With our correspondent in Beijing,
Retirees are no longer safe! They are even the most represented among the senior civil servants dismissed from their functions last year, as part of anti-corruption procedures in China. According to the count of South China Morning Post2023 saw an acceleration in the hunt for “tigers” with investigations launched against 45 senior executives of central institutions. Considered as party “rogues”, the latter are directly placed under the jurisdiction of the internal justice system of the Chinese political apparatus, namely the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Naked executives and retirees under surveillance
As powerful as the inquisition, the institution has millions of inspectors throughout the territory. Agents capable of going back into the archives. Twenty-seven of these 45 “naked cadres” – in other words who lost their status as party members – were retired when they were subject to disciplinary surveillance. The most publicized story being that of a grandfather, a former senior civil servant, betrayed by the posts of his granddaughter on social networks. “ Our family’s enormous wealth was provided by the labor of many Chinese people, I spend in a single day all the money that a person who criticizes me earned in a year », wrote the latter, attracting suspicion. The grandfather in question was also the subject of an investigation sixteen years after leaving his post: “ This shows that corrupt elements cannot sleep comfortably even after retirement, and that corruption will eventually be exposed », affirmed in October the People’s Daily.
War on the corrupt within the army
A focus on retirees which shows that more mistakes concern facts antecedent to Xi Jinping’s coming to power. Since 2013, the Chinese president has made the fight against corruption his hobby horse and a tool to purge his adversaries. A war on the corrupt which is less publicized when it comes to the army. Last Saturday, nine generals were dismissed. Five was part of the “rocket force” affected by a scandal which, in 2023, may have helped to bring down Li Shangfu, the former Defense Minister.
Fight against formalism and bureaucracy
This fight against corruption is also part of the campaign for the “great rebirth” of the nation and therefore of the party for the Chinese president. A forward purge which concerns all levels of the device. Beyond the corrupt “tigers”, the work of “rectification” aims to modify behaviors deemed ineffective. “ Formalism and bureaucracy are the enemy », says in substance the revised regulations on the disciplinary actions of the Chinese Communist Party published on December 27. The text provides for punishing “ slow actions and false actions that harm the interests of the masses ”, as well as statistical fraud and “ abuse of responsibility “. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is scheduled to begin its third plenary session next Monday. Purge must go on !
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