Xi Jinping makes a public pledge of allegiance to the constitution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 10, 2023. (Ju Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The scale and nature of China's global engagement make many in the West think that the Chinese Communist Party is not kleptocratic and imperialistic like Vladimir Putin's Russia, which Xi Jinping visited this week. But systemic corruption has shaped China's domestic governance, and Beijing increasingly exports corrupt practices to other countries through programs like the Belt and Road Initiative.

In a new Hudson Institute policy memo, Kleptocracy Initiative Research Fellow Nate Sibley debunks six myths associated with this narrative and lays out how Xi Jinping has leveraged a major anti-corruption campaign to reshape China's political landscape in pursuit of his long-term ambitions.

Key Insights

1. Xi is the first Chinese leader to take corruption seriously.

Though leaders since Mao Zedong have claimed to target corruption, economic reforms beginning in 1978 created abundant new opportunities for bribery, embezzlement, and fraud. Anti-corruption efforts tried and failed to keep pace with this unique form of graft-fueled growth. This set the stage for Xi to elevate anti-corruption efforts as a core party priority. But the situation is more complicated than that, if only because the term corruption can mean something quite different in the context of Xi’s Communist Party.

2. The anti-corruption campaign is (or isn’t) just a power grab by Xi.

In a system where nearly all senior public officials have engaged in corrupt practices at some point, everyone becomes a potential target for an anti-corruption campaign. A powerful body known as the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection is the perfect tool for controlling the party, and Xi has managed this through selective enforcement by removing rivals from key positions and then filling them with political allies. The campaign has undoubtedly purged many genuinely corrupt officials, but its parallel purpose has always been to purge Xi’s political rivals and consolidate his grip on power.

3. Xi Jinping is (or isn’t) a kleptocrat like Vladimir Putin.

Xi oversees arguably the most sprawling kleptocratic system in the world, but there is no evidence that he himself is a kleptocrat in the traditional sense. His motivation is power and control, not wealth and luxury. Yet he recognized this impulse in others and saw how corruption is integral to the party system, so he developed a form of political patronage that involves turning a blind eye to supporters’ misdeeds and sparing them from purges.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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