Key Points
With echoes of Mao Zedongs continuous revolution," Xi has sent fear rippling through the ranks of the Communist Party for more than a decade with the largest campaign against corruption in modern Chinese history..
The partys top internal watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has warned about a growing trend of options corruption"named after a type of financial contractwhereby crooked cadres provide favors in return for deferred bribes to be paid out only after they retire, as away to mask their misconduct..
Despite his efforts to fight graft, which include cutting government approvals and red tape that officials can abuse to extract bribes, Xi hasnt enacted deeper structural changessuch as asset disclosuresthat experts in clean government say are needed to attack corruption at its root..
. While it has helped Xi accumulate a level of power unseen since Mao, party insiders say his rule-by-fear" approach has stifled policy debate and fueled indecision among lower-level officials at a time when China requires more decisive leadership to deal with long-term challenges..
Officials are more inclined to provide favors to [state-owned enterprises], thereby reducing their career risks because such allocations do not imply corruption," Zeren Li and Songrui Liu, a pair of Chinese researchers, wrote in a recent study..
