Xi Jinping anti-corruption campaign

Abstract

The anti-corruption campaign carried out by Xi Jinping during his ruling period is the most significant in the history of modern China. Among the structures of the state, the military forces and state-owned and private companies, thousands of officials from the lowest to the highest levels of the Communist Party and state have been scrutinized and detained. The phenomenon leads to several lines of interpretation. On the one hand, it seems an attempt to safeguard the Party's survival, an increase in Beijing's political centrality over the provinces. On the other hand, the strengthening of power and the removal of rival political factions, also offers legitimacy for greater social control or a favourable context for the development of structural reforms. Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign turns out to reveal a set of motivations in a process of political solidification of an all-powerful leader.