Corruption Archives - Friends of Socialist China

Javier Vadell: The Communist Party of China as a collective ethical intellectual at the Fifth Plenary Session

The following article by Javier Vadell – Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas) in Brazil and a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) – offers a thoughtful Marxist reading of the fifth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which met in Beijing from 26 to 29 October and adopted a resolution on persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance.

Drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s conception of the party as the “modern Prince” – a collective intellectual capable of forging a collective will and leading the intellectual and moral reform of society – Javier argues that the plenum reaffirms the CPC’s self-understanding as a “collective ethical intellectual”, one that must continually educate, discipline and renew itself as the condition for its long-term capacity to govern.

He examines the concept of self-reform as the Party’s answer to the “historical cycle of rise and fall”, and analyses the anti-corruption formula of the “three nots” – ensuring that officials do not dare, are not able and do not want to be corrupt – as an articulation of coercion, institutions and consensus. Of these, he notes, the third is the most ambitious: punishing and regulating are tasks of the state, but ensuring that a cadre does not want to be corrupt is the task of a collective intellectual seeking to shape consciences.

Oliver Vargas: The Party and the People

We are pleased to publish the following article by Oliver Vargas, a British-Bolivian journalist with CGTN. It offers an accessible explanation of some of the key concepts behind the fifth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which met in Beijing from 26 to 29 October and adopted a resolution on persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance.

Oliver explains what “full and rigorous Party self-governance” means – strict rules, oversight, anti-corruption work and internal discipline, combined with constant self-renewal – and why the CPC regards it as essential at this stage of China’s drive for socialist modernisation.

He goes on to discuss how these principles translate into practice at the grassroots, visiting an administrative service centre in Haikou (capital of Hainan province), where a new “One-Form” system has cut repetitive paperwork and helped identify elderly residents who were entitled to social security subsidies but had never claimed them.

Readers may also be interested in the full text of the plenum’s resolution and of Xi Jinping’s explanation of it, both of which we have published.

CPC resolution on party self-governance: A major contribution to the theory and practice of Marxist party building with global significance

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held its fifth plenary session in Beijing from October 26 to 29, 2026.

On October 29 the meeting adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Certain Major Issues concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance, which was published on November 1.

At just under 14,500 words, this is a highly important Marxist document of great and far-reaching significance and demanding serious study not only for the CPC but for communist parties and organisations worldwide. Embodying, summing up, applying and developing the experience and lessons drawn from the more than 100 years of struggle by the CPC and the international communist movement, and of building socialism in China and the world, it is fearless and ruthless in its exposure of shortcomings, mistakes and challenges, serious and meticulous in the steps and measures it outlines, and scientifically optimistic with regard to the future. It is a revolutinary programmatic document that breaks new ground and qualitatively advances the theory and practice of Marxist party building and governance and therefore of socialist construction.

The following are the key points and some significant highlights from the resolution:

I. Importance, Urgency, and Overall Requirements of Persevering with Full and Rigorous Self-Governance

The reason why the Party has achieved one victory after another is that it has cherished the high ideal of communism, dedicated itself to achieving lasting greatness for the Chinese nation, and remained committed to seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation. It is also because during each historical period, the Party has attached great importance to its self-supervision and self-governance, had the courage to uphold truth and correct errors, and grown ever stronger by relying on its own efforts and the support of the people to resolve its own problems, thus becoming the strong leadership core in the cause of the Party and the people.
Following the Party’s 18th National Congress, the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core demonstrated tremendous political courage and a strong sense of responsibility in confronting the grave situation marked by weak, hollow, and watered-down Party leadership, lax, superficial, and ineffective self-supervision and self-governance, as well as a number of egregious problems within the Party. Staying firmly committed to full and rigorous Party self-governance, the Central Committee introduced stringent measures and made continuous efforts to tackle these prominent issues. As a result, the problem of lax and weak self-supervision and self-governance has been addressed at its root, unhealthy tendencies that had long gone unchecked have been curbed, deep-seated problems that had plagued the Party for years have been remedied, and serious dangers hidden within the Party, the state, and the military have been removed. The Party has thus grown stronger through revolutionary tempering.
As the central Party leadership’s eight-point decision on improving work conduct began to show its teeth as ironclad discipline, we intensified efforts to rectify pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance (the four malpractices) while promoting sound practices.

Advancing full and rigorous self-governance as an unceasing endeavour

Breaking the cycle of rise and fall: Xi Jinping outlines resolution on party self-governance

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held its fifth plenary session in Beijing from October 26 to 29, 2026.

On the final day it adopted a resolution on Certain Major Issues concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance, which was made public on November 1. On the same day, the text of the explanation of the draft resolution given by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, to introduce the discussion was also published.

In his explanation, Xi Jinping states: “For our Party to maintain its long-term governance, it is imperative to find answers to the fundamental question of how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall. Comrade Mao Zedong offered the first answer to this question back in his years in the cave dwellings of Yan’an: the people’s oversight over government. Since the Party’s 18th National Congress, we have found the second answer in exercising full and rigorous self-governance: the Party’s self-reform.”

According to Xi, this “entails exercising full and rigorous self-governance with unflinching courage to ensure the Party maintains its advanced nature and integrity and can purify, improve, renew, and excel itself. For more than a century, our Party has led the people in working tirelessly for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. During the course, the Party has always attached great importance to its self-supervision and self-governance, had the courage to uphold truth and correct errors, and grown ever stronger by relying on its own efforts and the support of the people to resolve its own problems.”

“At the same time,” he continued, “we must be keenly aware that full and rigorous Party self-governance is a long-term strategic task. Over the years, our Party membership is undergoing structural changes, with a steady increase in the proportion of members and officials born after the launch of reform and opening up in 1978. This has raised new requirements for education and management. The vast majority of Party members are exemplary, yet there remain a number of problems and hidden dangers that threaten to undermine the Party’s advanced nature, weaken its integrity, and jeopardise its long-term governance… Facing these problems and challenges, we must persevere with full and rigorous Party self-governance to remove the viruses that would erode the Party’s health, ensuring that the Party will never change its nature, its conviction, or its character, and that the socialist cause can be advanced from generation to generation.”

Summing up the recent history of the party, he notes that: “Since the Party’s 18th National Congress, the Central Committee has confronted the grave situation marked by weak, hollow, and watered-down Party leadership, lax, superficial, and ineffective self-supervision and self-governance, as well as some egregious problems within the Party.”

As a result of the measures taken, “the problem of lax and weak self-supervision and self-governance has been addressed at its root, unhealthy tendencies that had long gone unchecked have been curbed, deep-seated problems that had plagued the Party for years have been remedied, and serious dangers hidden within the Party, the state, and the military have been removed. The Party has thus grown stronger through revolutionary tempering. Thanks to these efforts, we have significantly strengthened the Party’s overall leadership and the centralised, unified leadership of the Central Committee; achieved a new breakthrough in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times…. As such a sound political situation has not been easily won, the whole Party must cherish it and continue to consolidate and develop it. This requires us, building on our valuable experience gained in the new era, to adopt higher standards and more concrete measures in persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance and constantly strengthen the Party’s capacity for providing political leadership, giving theoretical guidance, organising the people, and inspiring society. By doing so, we will see that the Party always enjoys the wholehearted support of the people and remains the strong leadership core in the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

“Building a great country and advancing national rejuvenation on all fronts through Chinese modernisation is a pioneering endeavour that no one has attempted before”, Xi notes, but alongside the positive domestic developments, “At the same time, however, with the world, the times, and the course of history changing in ways like never before, we will be confronted with multiple risks and challenges on our journey ahead. Internationally, momentous changes of a magnitude not seen in a century are unfolding across the world at a faster pace. Breakthroughs are accelerating in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, while a profound shift is taking place in the international balance of power. As the world enters a new period of turbulence and transformation, uncertainties and unforeseeable factors are increasing in our country’s external environment…

“In the face of complicated international and domestic landscapes and the challenging tasks of advancing reform, promoting development, and ensuring stability, it is essential, in our efforts to ensure steady and sustained progress in Chinese modernisation, to carry forward the great founding spirit and fine qualities of the Party, and always bear in mind that all of us in the Party must never forget our original aspiration and founding mission, that we must always stay modest, prudent, and hard-working, and that we must have the courage and ability to carry on our fight.”

Xi’s explanation also details the drafting process for the resolution along with its general framework and main content.

From Yan’an to the Fifth Plenum: the CPC’s commitment to self-reform

In the following article, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez examines the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which adopted a resolution on persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance.

Starting from Mao Zedong’s 1945 conversation with Huang Yanpei on how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall, Carlos traces the problem of bureaucratism and privilege in socialist states from Lenin’s warnings to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and shows how the CPC’s commitment to self-reform – together with the people’s oversight of government and the mass line – has become a permanent feature of its governance and a profound contribution to the theory and practice of Marxist party building.

This is an expanded version of an article written for CGTN, which appeared on 31 October.

In July 1945, the educator Huang Yanpei visited Yan’an and put a question to Mao Zedong. Throughout Chinese history, he observed, dynasties had emerged only to decay over time – their rulers growing complacent, their bureaucracies bloated, their people alienated. Could the Communists escape this historical cycle? Mao replied that they had found a new path: that of people’s democracy, supervision and accountability. “Only when the people are allowed to supervise the government will the government not slacken”.

Eighty-one years later, the same question was the central theme of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which closed in Beijing on 29 October. The plenum adopted a resolution on persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance, its communiqué stating that the Party “has found two answers to the question of how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall”: “the people’s oversight over government and the Party’s self-reform”.

A longstanding challenge

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously wrote in the Communist Manifesto that communists “have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole”. Maintaining that unity of interests in practice, over the course of more than a century of socialist governance, has thrown up numerous challenges. How can a ruling communist party prevent the emergence of bureaucratism, corruption and privilege; how can it stay in touch with the masses? It is noteworthy that the plenum communiqué consciously echoes the founders of scientific socialism: “The Party tolerates no corruption, as it has no special interests of its own besides the interests of the working class and the greatest possible majority of the people.”

As early as 1919, just two years after the October Revolution, Lenin was already warning that the new Soviet state faced a serious danger: that reactionary elements were “assuming the colouring of communists and, to succeed better in their careers, procuring membership cards of the Russian Communist Party”. Such people quite clearly had interests separate and apart from those of the working people, namely, increasing their personal wealth and advancing their careers. Lenin’s writings in the final years of his life return again and again to the problem of bureaucracy and to the gap opening up between the party and the masses. In a speech on 30 December 1920 – somewhat ironically, a sharp rebuttal of ideas advanced by Trotsky and Bukharin – he famously said that “ours is a workers’ state with a bureaucratic twist to it”, sometimes translated as “a workers’ state with bureaucratic deformations”.

And indeed, in the last decades of the Soviet Union’s existence, a privileged layer of officials did emerge; there was a certain fusion of wealth and power; and the masses did become alienated. Things reached a point, as Xi Jinping has observed, where the Communist Party’s 19 million members did little to resist the dissolution of their party and state in 1991.

Self-reform in theory and practice

Since the start of the new era in 2012, the CPC has placed the notion of self-reform (a more literal translation is “self-revolution”) at the centre of its work. It holds that a ruling party must subject itself to continuous scrutiny, rectification and renewal, because no external force can do the job for it.

China, Laos pledge enhanced anti-corruption cooperation

The close and comprehensive ties between China and its socialist neighbour, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic have been reinforced with a recent visit by Khamphanh Phommathath, Politburo member of the Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), chairman of the Inspection Committee of the Party Central Committee and president of the State Inspection Authority.

In a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Li Xi, 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, in Beijing on December 6, Li noted that China and Laos are friendly socialist neighbours that walk hand in hand, bound by the same destiny.

China, he added, supports Laos in playing a bigger role in ASEAN and in international and regional affairs, and stands ready to work with Laos to realise the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Laos will assume the rotating chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2024.

Khamphanh said the LPRP cherishes its close friendship with the CPC, and that it is willing to work with the Chinese side to firmly implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and countries as well as promote the construction of a clean railway between Laos and China, promote the greater development of relations between the two parties and two countries, and deepen cooperation on discipline inspection, supervision and anti-corruption work.

The following article was originally carried by the Xinhua News Agency.

BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — Li Xi, 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, on Wednesday held talks with Khamphanh Phommathath, Politburo member of the Party Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), chairman of the Inspection Committee of the Party Central Committee and president of the State Inspection Authority.

Li noted that China and Laos are friendly socialist neighbours that walk hand in hand, bound by the same destiny. He said that China, guided by the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and countries, is ready to work with Laos to intensify high-level exchanges, enhance strategic communication, synergize development strategies further, and expand high-quality cooperation on the joint construction of the Belt and Road.

China supports Laos in playing a bigger role in ASEAN and in international and regional affairs, and stands ready to work with Laos to realize the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity, build the Belt and Road, and implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, Li added.

While briefing the Lao side on the CPC’s efforts to enforce strict Party governance and fight corruption comprehensively, Li said the CPC is willing to strengthen its exchanges of experience with the LPRP on improving party conduct, building a clean government and combating corruption. He said the CPC is ready to deepen communication and coordination under multilateral anti-corruption mechanisms, work with Laos to promote the construction of a clean Silk Road, cooperate in combating cross-border corruption crimes, and provide a strong guarantee to promote the construction of a community with a shared future between China and Laos.

Khamphanh said the LPRP cherishes its close friendship with the CPC, and that it is willing to work with the Chinese side to firmly implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and countries. He said the LPRP is ready to intensify high-level exchanges, strengthen exchanges and mutual learning related to governance experience, promote the construction of a clean railway between Laos and China, promote the greater development of relations between the two parties and two countries, and deepen cooperation on discipline inspection, supervision and anti-corruption work.

Why is China’s battle against corruption grave and complex?

In this original article, Keith Lamb explains that, whilst China has scored enormous achievements in the battle against corruption, it still faces an uphill task in preventing new cases and rooting out existing ones.

Because the CPC is a Marxist party, Keith explains, with the historic mission to usher in socialism, it has to hold itself to higher standards than those political parties which operate within the framework of capitalism. However, when working towards socialism, utopian action will fail. Therefore, China took the pragmatic road by adopting a socialist market economy, which has advanced the forces of production and technology necessary for socialist development. However, this also creates a series of class and material contradictions that need to be navigated.

Achieving China’s goal of becoming a prosperous and modern socialist country by 2049, the author notes, not only requires a constant battle against corruption, but also provides part of the remedy for corruption.

Recently at the second plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) it was noted that the corruption situation, in China remains grave and complex. The Communist Party of China (CPC) faces an uphill task in preventing new cases of corruption and rooting out existing ones.

In recent years, there have been enormous achievements in the battle against corruption at all levels of officialdom, which is encapsulated in the slogan “striking tigers and swatting flies.” In 2018, Lai Xiaomin the former state asset manager was executed for taking $277 million in bribes, and Sun Zhengcai, the former Chongqing Party Chief, was given life imprisonment for taking $27 million in bribes.

As of June 2022, a total of 4,516,000 corruption cases were handled by disciplinary authorities, and 4,439,000 people were punished for violating discipline. Just over a month after the closing of the 20th CPC National Congress, more than 10 officials who were suspected of severe violations of discipline and laws had turned themselves in.

Considering such successes, one may ask why the corruption situation still remains grave and complex. First, the massive anti-corruption campaign launched after the 18th National Congress was unprecedented in size, due to corruption becoming so deep-rooted. Consequently, considering the magnitude of the problem, no matter the achievements already accumulated, there is still much to do.