How Xi’s anti-corruption campaign could homogenize the CCP

With the July downfall of Zhou Yongkang, former head of the Chinese Public Security Bureau and Secretary of the CPC Politburo Standing Committee, Xi’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign has reached yet another peak since the Bo Xilai incident two years ago. Zhou, a close ally to Bo, had already been under investigation on the initiative of former president Hu Jintao for suspicion of corruption, and has finally fallen to the continued efforts of Xi’s uprising regime. With these two tigers caged, many are curious where Xi’s campaign will target next. Despite how the anti-corruption campaign is advertised, reality proves that the campaign is indeed the conduit through which Xi is taking down his internal political oppositions within the CCP. Without a transparent investigation and judiciary process regarding the prosecution of the “tigers” and lower officials alike, the anti-corruption campaign could be the veil to the more frictional and realist power struggle between intraparty players. What is certain, however, is that the Chinese population has generally shown great support for the anti-corruption rhetoric, which leaves the more powerful player in this CCP infighting in a comfortable position to pave a path towards eliminating sectionalism. Now with both Zhou and Bo apprehended, how close is Xi to truly centralizing power within the Chinese Communist Party?

During former president Hu’s decade long tenure, it was clear that the President and his PM’s abilities to finalize party and national matters were greatly crippled by their vice-chair incumbents who pledged loyalty to another power figure in the CCP – former national chairman Jiang Zemin. Slow to give up his chairman position in the State Central Military Commission, Jiang effectively denied the Hu regime from control of the People’s Liberation Army while his cronies, Zhou and Bo, served as Minister of Public Security and Minister of Commerce. Until Jiang released his position on the military commission to Hu in the 2005, much of Hu’s presidential career had arguably not been his own.

Xi, however, succeeded Hu’s office on the military commission without delay, and with the arrest of Bo and Zhou has chipped away much of Jiang’s control over the country’s military, security forces, and domestic commerce. Jiang, who had corporatized the Chinese military during his tenure and allowed privatization of many of China’s State Owned Enterprises to gain political allies, had put China through rapid economic growth plagued with spiraling corruption. Upon initially ascending to power, Xi immediately removed less rigid and relatively regional officials such as commanders in chief of Beijing military zone and replaced them with officials from his camp. Two years later, Xi’s continuous efforts have apparently paid off as Jiang’s left and right hand men are locked behind bars. In fact, speculation has questioned whether the sudden military drill in the Huadong area (Mainly including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangdong) which has prohibited many flights out of Shanghai, Jiang’s headquarter, is in fact a cover-up for Jiang’s arrest.

But what does all this mean for China in the global arena?

For many Chinese, the current intraparty power struggle within the CCP is reminiscent of the Gang of Four incident following Mao’s passing in the late 1970s. With the public either silent or unsupportive of the political instability caused by the infighting between the Gang of Four led by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing and Hu Yao Bang’s regime, China entered a brief but nonetheless impactful period of retreat from international affairs – this, however, was more than three decades ago.

Having visited South America regarding the progress of BRICS and tightened relations with South Korea and Mongolia in the past three months, Xi has increased his appearance under the global spotlight. At the same time, the Chinese government has not backed down from international disputes such as the island and maritime border skirmishes with neighboring Japan and Vietnam, and has intensified coordinated efforts to crack down on terrorist groups in its Xinjiang province.

Xi’s rising activism in both domestic and international affairs shows, perhaps, that the new regime has somehow found solution to the political infighting between Xi and Jiang which began even during the final days of Hu’s tenure. Disregarding whether or not Xi has managed to truly establish unilateral leadership within the CCP, the fact that the government is functioning at the capacity as demonstrated in both domestic and international affairs might suggest that the infighting within the party is close to being won.