Wang Yilin, the former Chairman of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), is embroiled in a corruption scandal involving 900 billion yuan. The image shows Wang Yilin's basement filled with stacks of renminbi. (Video screenshot)
[People News] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has produced an anti-corruption documentary titled 'Always on the Road.' This suggests that the CCP recognises that corruption within its ranks will persist alongside its dictatorial regime, making it difficult to eliminate. To maintain its grip on power, the CCP employs phrases like 'achieving phased victories in anti-corruption' and 'anti-corruption is always on the road' to placate and mislead the public, discouraging them from losing hope or contemplating a change in government.
In its anti-corruption campaign, the CCP has taken down a significant number of 'tigers' and 'flies' each year, with the figures steadily increasing. According to a report by the CCP's official media, Xinhua News Agency, on January 17, 2025, a total of 983,000 officials faced disciplinary actions throughout the year, including 727,000 for party disciplinary violations and 321,000 for administrative violations. The majority of these punishments targeted grassroots officials and personnel from rural areas and enterprises.
Comparative data reveal that in 2024, the CCP's disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies opened 877,000 cases and punished 889,000 individuals. In 2025, the number of cases filed increased by approximately 135,000 compared to the previous year, marking a rise of about 15.4%; the number of individuals punished also rose by approximately 94,000, an increase of about 10.6%. These figures indicate that the scale of punishments against so-called 'disciplinary violators' within the CCP continues to grow.
The distribution of case filings and penalties shows that provincial and ministerial-level officials, as well as bureau-level officials, have consistently made up a small percentage of the total, with the primary focus of accountability being on township-level and village-level officials. Official reports indicate that these cases mainly involve violations of 'political discipline,' 'integrity discipline,' and issues related to grassroots governance.
Analysts suggest that this distribution appears to be a concentrated effort to clean up the grassroots level, rather than a genuine attempt to hold the core of power accountable.
As the economy continues to decline, the oppression and exploitation of the populace by bureaucrats of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have become increasingly severe. Grassroots officials are the direct enforcers of the CCP's tyranny, engaging in ruthless extortion and suppression of the people without leaving themselves an escape route, which has led to widespread public anger. The CCP's current focus on anti-corruption efforts at the grassroots level seems to be a strategy to mitigate public discontent while also projecting an image to the outside world that it is serious about tackling corruption. Observers believe this approach highlights the CCP's struggles with its governance and internal oversight mechanisms, which are unable to effectively address long-standing systemic contradictions, thus relying on a stringent discipline and punishment system to keep functioning.
According to reports from The Dajiyuan, cultural and historical scholar Wang Ping (pseudonym) analyses that the data from Xinhua News Agency does not accurately reflect the number of high-ranking officials investigated by the CCP. Instead, it shows that responsibility is being increasingly shifted downward within the system. Many issues that should have been resolved at the institutional level have been converted into personal accountability. 'The decisions and rules from above remain largely unchanged, but when problems arise, someone must take the blame, and ultimately, it often falls on grassroots officials.'
In light of the notable rise in the number of cases filed against township and village-level officials, Mr Song (pseudonym), a scholar from Peking University, analysed the situation from an institutional perspective. He emphasised that this increase does not imply that grassroots levels are more susceptible to corruption; rather, it indicates that they are placed in a challenging position that makes compliance with regulations difficult. Grassroots officials wield limited power but are directly involved in specific matters such as land transfers, agricultural subsidies, project fund allocations, and grassroots administrative approvals. 'The rules are strict, the leeway is minimal, and tasks must be completed. Over time, this can lead to situations where officials are drawn into grey areas, and when issues arise, the responsibility inevitably falls on them.'
Political scholar Mr Zhou Jun (pseudonym) from Hunan noted that nearly one million individuals have faced disciplinary actions within a year, which itself suggests that the entire governance system is under significant strain. He pointed out that this scale exceeds the normal bounds of supervision and resembles a governance approach that relies on punitive measures to function. 'When a system must continuously discipline grassroots personnel to sustain daily operations, it indicates that the authorities are struggling to resolve issues through conventional mechanisms.'
Some commentators argue that the disciplinary actions taken against nearly one million people in just one year reflect the challenges faced by the Communist Party of China's (CPC) daily governance and internal oversight mechanisms, which have become unable to address long-standing institutional contradictions on their own. Instead, they rely on a high-intensity disciplinary and punitive system to maintain operations. While the CPC interprets these figures as evidence of 'strict governance of the party in all aspects,' many overseas media outlets and researchers view this as an annual report that highlights the internal pressures and governance challenges within the CPC system, with ongoing implications.
Deng Yuwen, a Chinese issues expert, recently wrote an article for 'Voice of America' in which he argued that the Communist Party of China's (CPC) so-called efforts to rectify its style and enforce strict governance have failed to produce any deterrent effect. The increasing number of high-profile corruption cases, referred to as 'tigers,' each year serves as evidence that the CPC's corruption cannot be fundamentally addressed or corrected. He attributes the failure of anti-corruption measures to the fact that 'CPC corruption is a systemic issue that is inherent to the political structure and must be addressed at the level of political reform.' Without reforms to the political system, separation of party and government, checks and balances on power, external oversight, and transparency regarding property, 'no matter how vigorous the anti-corruption campaign is, the long-term outcome will ultimately be futile.' △
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