{"id":50478,"date":"2015-10-26T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=50478 "},"modified":"2015-10-26T21:57:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:57:00","slug":"50478-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=50478","title":{"rendered":"China\\&#8217;s Ruling Party Meets Amid Growing Backlash Over Graft Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>2015-10-26<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2015\/43\/20151026image(7).jpg\" alt=\"20151026image(7).jpg (622&#215;428)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Petitioners crowd outside government headquarters ahead of the central committee plenary session in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, Oct. 26, 2015.<\/div><div>Courtesy of Xu Peiling.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>As the ruling Chinese Communist Party gears up for its fifth plenary session since President Xi Jinping came to power, Xi is facing a huge political backlash over his ongoing anti-corruption campaign, analysts said on Monday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>The fifth plenum of the party&#8217;s central committee is scheduled to run from Tuesday to Thursday in Beijing, and comes amid major personnel changes in the highest echelons of China&#8217;s leadership.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>More than half of the central committee&#8217;s members have been fired or moved to different posts in the run-up to the plenum, official media reported.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The large-scale reshuffle is extremely rare in the history of the CPC [and is] a result &#8230; of the anti-graft campaign, which has been of unprecedented severity,&#8221; the Global Times, which is run by party mouthpiece the People&#8217;s Daily, said in a political analysis.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>According to the Beijing Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Beijing municipal branch of the party, 104 of a total of 205 central committee members have been &#8220;promoted, demoted or expelled from their positions since 2012.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Of those, 16 were transferred to less important posts, and seven were removed, it said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Party discipline<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>The Global Times quoted Party School professor Zhang Xixian as saying that the moves reflect Xi&#8217;s ongoing focus on discipline within the party, which includes not just the anti-corruption campaign, but tighter regulation of members&#8217; activities and publicly expressed opinions.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;The country is laying the foundation to comprehensively strengthen party discipline between 2012 and 2017,&#8221; Zhang told the paper.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>While Xi&#8217;s anti-corruption campaign has netted seven central committee members and more than 100 officials at ministry level or above since he took power in November 2012, there is a growing backlash among the party&#8217;s 60-some million members, analysts said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Recently reported comments by party graft-buster Xu Aisheng suggest a host of unforeseen consequences from the corruption campaign, which critics say is highly selective, operating more like a political campaign targeting Xi&#8217;s political rivals, according to online commentator Xiucai Jianghu.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;There are very deep waters around the anti-corruption campaign,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think the anti-corruption campaign is already beginning to attack itself, much like the accusations of witchcraft during the Han dynasty [206 BC-220 AD].&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;It&#8217;s being used to attack political rivals by accusing them of corruption, and removing them from their posts,&#8221; Xiucai Jianghu said. &#8220;Corruption is endemic within the Communist Party, so this is just a tactic.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>The anti-corruption campaign is generally waged behind closed doors, with party investigators handing a case over to the judicial authorities only when they have collected evidence and decided that a suspect is guilty enough to denounce in public and expel from the party.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Veteran Hebei journalist Zhu Xinxin said the government had been hoping to gloss over resistance to the campaign from within party ranks.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The whole reason why the government didn&#8217;t want &#8230; details made public is that it was afraid the party&#8217;s [intended] shining and righteous image would be damaged,&#8221; Zhu said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Now that details of internal political struggles have emerged &#8230; they are showing that there is a big hole in the party&#8217;s shiny image.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Range of complaints<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>As China&#8217;s leaders prepared to meet in session on Tuesday, petitioners gathered in the capital with a range of complaints against the government, in a bid to have their grievances heard.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>However, the authorities have boosted the level of manpower aimed at detaining those who complain, before escorting them back under guard to their hometown, petitioners said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;There is a particularly harsh crackdown [this year], with interceptors outnumbering petitioners at all of the main complaints departments,&#8221; Jiangsu petitioner Tang Shuxiu said on Monday.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/china-petitions-10262015154627.html\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;&quot;The large-scale reshuffle is extremely rare in the history of the CPC [and is] a result &#8230; of the anti-graft campaign, which has been of unprecedented severity,&quot; the Global Times, which is run by party mouthpiece the People&#39;s Daily, said in a political analysis.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}