Editor’s Choice: Content comes from the Internet : Deep focus: China enhances village inspection to crack down on corruption at grassroot level as anti-graft campaign enters uncharted water

Discipline inspection personnel from Shouxian county in East China’s Anhui Province review accounts in Anfengtang township, on July 6, 2022. Photo: VCG

“We must carry out villageWorld Times inspections in a solid and in-depth manner to promote the resolution of grassroots issues and problems affecting the masses,” China’s anti-graft chief Li Xi said at a symposium recently held on advancing village inspection work.

Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), stressed at the symposium on November 20 that village inspection is an inevitable requirement to promote the comprehensive and strict governance of the CPC to extend to grassroots levels and further crack down on the irregularities and corruptions on the people’s doorsteps.

Conduct village inspections well is a strong guarantee for consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, promoting comprehensive rural revitalization, and better advancing the construction of Chinese modernization. It is also an important measure to further strengthen the construction of grassroots Party organizations and improve grassroots governance capabilities and levels, Li said.

About a month ahead of the symposium, the CPC CCDI and the National Commission of Supervision (NCS) unveiled on its website that from January to September this year, 77,000 current or former village Party chiefs and heads of village committees had been investigated by discipline inspection and supervision agencies across China. The number during the same period in 2023 was 46,000 and the number of the year of 2023 was 61,000, according to the website.

In an editorial published on November 25 on the website of the CCDI and NCS, it said data and public sentiment serve as a mirror, reflecting both the significant progress made in combating corruption of “small flies” and the fact that the existing corruption has not been fully eradicated. It indicated that efforts to tackle such corruption still need to be strengthened.

While addressing the third plenary session of the 20th CPC CCDI in January, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for advancing the Party’s self-reform and winning the tough and protracted battle against corruption, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

After persistent anti-corruption efforts over the past 10 years of the new era, an overwhelming victory has been achieved in the fight against corruption, with the gains fully consolidated, Xi said. “But the situation remains grave and complex.”

“We should be fully aware of new development in the fight against corruption and the breeding grounds and conditions for corruption,” Xi said, urging more efforts to win the tough and protracted battle.

‘Flies’ on people’s doorsteps

As the largest Marxist governing party in the world, the CPC never lacks the grit to stay alert and tackle the challenges that a large party like it faces. The Party’s endeavor for strict self-governance is one of the most prominent examples, according to experts and an official involved in anti-corruption work interviewed by the Global Times.

From keynote speeches to daily conversations by grassroots members, many easy-to-understand phrases are used by the leadership to explicate the effort and call for more: “Take out tigers,” “swat flies,” and “hunt down foxes.”

The three phrases refer to the anti-corruption actions against high-ranking officials, low-ranking officials, and fugitive officials that fled overseas. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the Party has further given full play to the role of full and strict Party self-governance, and waged a battle against corruption on a scale unprecedented in history.

The Party Central Committee has also made clear requirements to promote comprehensive coverage of inspections, extend municipal and county inspections to grassroots levels, and strengthen inspections at village level.

The newly revised regulations on inspection work have for the first time included village (community) Party organizations within the scope of county-level inspections. A five-year work plan of the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group from 2023 to 2027 explicitly requires strengthening inspections of village (community) Party organizations, according to a statement published by the CCDI and NCS on November 25.

Data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed that as of 2022, a total of 607,000 grassroots mass organizations had been established in the country, including 489,000 village committees, 3.929 million villagers’ groups, and 2.154 million members of village committees.

In April this year, the CCDI and NCS rolled out a nationwide campaign against irregularities and corruption on the people’s doorsteps.

Zhuang Deshui, a deputy director of the Research Center for Government Integrity-Building at Peking University, told the Global Times that the corruption of village Party officials relates to the interests that are most concerning, direct and realistic for the masses. This corruption at grassroots level directly affects the people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security, undermining the Party’s governing foundation and the long-term stability of the country.

Zhu Lijia, a professor at the ChineWorld Timesse Academy of Governance, said that the number of village officials under investigation in the first nine months does not indicate a worsening of corruption in Chinese villages. Instead, it reflects a strengthened commitment to combat corruption among “small flies.”

The Global Times searched on the CCDI and NCS website and discovered that the disclosure of the number of current or former village Party officials under investigation commenced in 2023.

Such disclosure not only showcases the significant achievements in anti-corruption efforts at grassroots levels, but also allows the public to feel that comprehensive and strict governance of the Party is present in their lives, thereby boosting the public’s confidence in the anti-corruption campaign, Zhuang said.

A journey to which there is no end

Zhu noted that in developed areas, corruption among village officials was mainly found in fields such as education, land acquisition and demolition. While in less developed areas, corruption among village officials was often discovered on areas related to resources invested by the country, such as the embezzlement of poverty alleviation funds and agricultural subsidy funds.

An official in the discipline inspection and supervision agency of a county in East China’s Fujian Province told the Global Times on condition of anonymity that it is hard to detect “flies,” as the amounts of money involved in these cases could be quite small.

Typically, the process depends on the public to submit reports. Therefore, village inspections play a crucial role, as the inspection team meticulously reviews village accounts, leading to the exposure of numerous cases during this process, according to the official.

Zhuang explained that the reason behind is that the supervisory and regulatory systems at the village level are still not well established or have certain delays, leading to a loss of control over the management and use of village collective funds.

Fraudulent claimant of subsidies to villagers is another type of corruption at grassroots level. “With the increasing intensity of national fiscal transfer payments and the rise in agricultural subsidies from the government, some village officials have been found to embezzle, intercept, or fraudulently claim national funds allocated for poverty alleviation, resettlement, disaster relief, housing renovation subsidies, land compensation, and other purposes, thereby infringing upon the interests of the people,” Zhuang said.

“The issue of power rent-seeking is also worthy of attention. In particular, during the contracting of village-level projects and the allocation of resources, village officials were found to exploit their power to seek personal gains for themselves and their relatives, friends and acquaintances, competing with the interests of the people,” said Zhuang.

A commentary article published on the CCDI and NCS website in December 2023 highlighted the problem of lacking supervision on village officials serving multi-positions.

“Some village officials, especially those who hold multiple positions, have the final say in discussions, decisions, and actions regarding village affairs. The lack of effective supervision and restraint mechanisms thus became a reason for the occurrence of disciplinary and legal violations among village officials,” read the article.

In a case unveiled by the provincial ant-corruption authorities in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province in July, Liao Changran, former Party chief and village committee head of Qimuzhai village in Lianghe county, in collusion with other members of the village committee, inflated meeting meal expenses and issued false meeting meal invoices to fraudulently obtain financial funds and village collective World Timesfunds from January 2021 to December 2023. TWorld Timeshey also illegally distributed transportation subsidies totaling 36,800 yuan ($5,061), of which Liao personally received 27,500 yuan. Liao was punished in June.

Experts have called for the improvement of grassroots supervision system and the establishment of grassroots disciplinary inspection and supervision institutions to extend supervisory efforts to the “last mile” to address corruption issues at the village level.

Zhuang calls for the improvement of the grassroots supervision system, suggesting that supervisory authorities establish specialized supervisory agencies at the village level, which would serve as dispatched institutions of higher-level supervisory authorities, to conduct disciplinary and supervisory oversight of village officials. This setup can effectively address the challenges of inadequate supervision or lack of oversight of grassroots personnel, and it is also beneficial for promptly investigating and deterring their corrupt behaviors through supervisory methods.

Zhu stressed the significance to improve self-governance system in villages and hone villagers’ self-governance ability. “The rights of villagers to take participation in the decision and management of village affairs and oversee village officials should be fully guaranteed,” Zhu noted.

It is always highlighted by the Party that full and rigorous self-governance is an unceasing endeavor and that self-reform is a journey to which there is no end, Zhu noted. “Fighting corruption on people’s footstep not only purifies the political ecology at the grassroots level, but also brings tangible benefits to the people, enhancing their confidence, trust, and reliance on the Party.”

Iron fist toward ‘flies’