Continuous Revolution”: Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign

Gen. Zhang Youxia, first-ranked Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission and its senior-most general has been placed under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law” along with another member, Gen. Liu Zhenli. This leaves the Commission with just two members, its civilian Chairman, Xi Jinping and the second-ranked Vice-Chairman Gen. Zhang Shengmin also in charge of anti-corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The senior Zhang was seen as a close family friend and ally of Xi’s and was retained in his position at the 20^th Party Congress in 2022 despite having reached retirement age. As speculation flies about the reasons for his removal and about the implications for the PLA’s operational abilities, it is important to understand better the evolving nature of Xi’s long running anti-corruption campaign in order to make sense of the latest developments.

The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), held its fifth plenary meeting from January 12 to 14, 2026. The meeting was attended by the senior leadership of the CPC including its military leadership, comprising both Gen. Zhang Youxia and Gen. Liu.

The main message from the meeting was that the anti-corruption campaign would be carried out even more intensely. Xi Jinping’s speech at the plenum laid down the message through a new political slogan “three mores”: to more resolutely and forcefully implement decisions of the central committee, to more scientifically and effectively cage power, and to more firmly fight against corruption.

A decade-old campaign has evolved into a mechanism to tackle the persistent problems arising from the lack of political reforms of the CPC’s Leninist organizational structure, and thus, its scope and utility have grown beyond merely targeting Xi’s opponents.

Shifting Forms

Few campaigns have persisted for so long in the CPC’s 100-plus years of existence. The anti-corruption campaign launched in 2012 was expected to gradually lose steam. Instead, it has been institutionalized with flexibility enough to tackle new, emergent forms of corruption and its persistence is reflected in consistently higher numbers of senior cadres and lower-level officials coming under the CCDI’s radar. The number of cases, in fact, rises in the runup to the CPC’s Party Congresses held every five years.

However, the campaign is no longer dominated by Xi Jinping’s efforts to consolidate and centralize power. It is evolving in its mechanisms and tactics to respond to the shifting forms and nature of corruption and becoming a part of governance mechanism of the CPC. As a governance tool, anti-corruption campaigns help enforce the central leadership’s vision and key decisions, polishes the CPC’s image among the population and the Party leadership’s relationship with its own members and cadre.  

With the next Party Congress due in late 2027, the next two years are likely to see an intensification of the campaign.

One, the selection of leadership at local levels (county-level upwards) will begin this year, starting the process for selecting the delegates to the Congress. This process aimed at “promoting truly loyal, reliable, consistent, and responsible good cadres” is likely to be accompanied by an intense anti-corruption campaign as was the case in the lead-up to the 19^th Party Congress in 2017 and the 20^th Party Congress in 2022.

Two, given the consistently high number of corruption cases, it is evident that corruption remains endemic to the CPC. At the same time, even as financial corruption and violations of the Party’s regulations and conduct remain a focus, one of the major concerns is the implementation of central decisions at the local level. As a vast and diverse country, the central leadership faces the problems of implementing its policies on the ground. As economic troubles persist and Xi approaches the end of his third-term, the CCDI has expanded the scope of ‘corruption’ to encompass disobedience or failing to implement central policies. For a Leninist party such as the CPC, the disciplinary machinery is key, even for regular policy implementation and unifying the thinking across the hierarchy.

Three, while the CPC has innovated in terms of its tools and tactics, officials have been no less innovative in changing their methods and channels for corruption. While the “eight regulations” aimed at rooting out extravagance and correcting official conduct implemented since 2012 remain at the core of the campaign and these have been backed up by regulations targeting different avenues facilitating corrupt behaviour, newer forms of corruption keep emerging. One such mechanism under increasing scrutiny is “family-style corruption” or simply, using family members as cover to seek illicit gains – a form quite familiar in in India.  Difficult to detect, this form of corruption takes heavy toll of the CPC’s image and functioning, especially at local levels.

Xi’s “Continuous Revolution”

12 years on and with thousands of cadres having fallen, the anti-corruption campaign has become Xi Jinping’s version of the Maoist idea of “continuous revolution”. For Mao Zedong, the idea was to root out problems arising from what he perceived was the bureaucratization of the CPC as a governing party. Xi, by contrast, sees bureaucratization as a key remedy with anti-corruption as a tool to cure the problems arising out of the CPC’s Leninist top-down organizational structure. In its second decade, the campaign is thus aimed at curing organizational issues rather than simply targeting deviations by individual officials.  

In the absence of political reforms, the objective of “putting power in the cage of rules” demands a continuously innovating anti-corruption campaign to handle ever-changing forms of corruption and innovation by cadres to evade the powerful CCDI. Xi’s own version of “continuous revolution,” will continue even amidst rising economic troubles at home and external pressures. Gen. Zhang Youxia’s fall suggests that no sector of the Party-state apparatus – whether civilian or military – and no official, however high or close to Xi, will be spared.

---

This article was originally published in The Tribune as part of an arrangement with the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies