By Li Deyan, Vision Times
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to trumpet its anti-corruption campaign, new data from 2025 reveal a much different reality. The number of senior officials investigated and purged reached a historic high — all while corruption within leader Xi Jinping’s own circle is increasingly exposed. The result, analysts say, is a sharp erosion of Xi’s personal authority and a growing wave of quiet mockery inside Beijing’s political system.
On Jan. 6, the CCP’s official disciplinary mouthpiece, “China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily,” reported that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission opened investigations in 2025 into multiple centrally managed officials, including Jiang Chaoliang, Jin Xiangjun, Lan Tianli, Yi Huiman, and Liu Hui.
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Record number of senior officials probed
According to the report, 65 centrally managed officials were formally placed under investigation in 2025: The highest annual figure on record.
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The notice claimed that corruption cases increasingly involved a mixture of political and economic issues, with enforcement efforts concentrated in sectors characterized by concentrated power and capital, including finance, state-owned enterprises, energy, higher education, sports, healthcare, and infrastructure construction. Investigators also scrutinized the business activities of officials’ spouses and children, while “key bribers” were subjected to joint punishment.
Another notable feature of the campaign was its transnational reach. The CCP claimed it pursued not only domestic officials but also those who had fled overseas, seeking to recover both individuals and illicit assets.
Official figures show that between January and November 2025, authorities repatriated 782 fugitives, including 61 CCP members and state employees, 36 individuals on Interpol red notices, and two from China’s “Top 100 Red Notice” list. However, the total amount of recovered illicit funds stood at 23.657 billion yuan, a figure critics say pales in comparison to the scale of corruption.
Anti-corruption probes turn on Xi’s own
Since taking power in late 2012, Xi Jinping has repeatedly invoked anti-corruption as a political banner, using it to purge rival factions. Early targets included figures such as Xu Caihou, Guo Boxiong, Zhou Yongkang, and Gu Junshan, whose confiscated assets reportedly reached staggering sums.
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However, after Xi began his third term following the CCP’s 20th Party Congress, the focus shifted. Many of those purged in recent years were personally promoted by Xi himself, often referred to as the “Xi family army.”
Among them were senior military figures such as Miao Hua, director of the Central Military Commission’s Political Work Department, and Zhong Shaojun, described as Xi’s top military aide. According to disclosures, the two allegedly colluded in bribery schemes, requiring officers seeking promotion to pay large sums.
Public information shows that Xi personally promoted 79 full generals, nearly half of whom have now been investigated or removed, a pattern that has further undermined his claims of moral authority.
A widespread pattern
U.S.-based political commentator Wang Youqun questioned why corruption has continued to expand despite 13 years of Xi’s anti-graft drive. He argued that the campaign is not genuine anti-corruption but a tool for internal power struggles. By reinforcing the principle that “the Party leads everything,” Xi has actually worsened incentives for corruption.
Wang added that Xi’s campaign has failed to address the systemic roots of corruption within the CCP, and that the regime’s determination to continue persecuting Falun Gong has led it to promote corrupt officials who are politically loyal, further fueling rot within the system.
Commentator Xing Tianxing noted, “Under the CCP’s current system of governance, Party officials and the people are in opposition. The regime treats the population as an enemy, which naturally breeds corruption and local tyrants. Expecting the Communist Party to eliminate its own corruption and genuinely serve the people is impossible.”
Taiwan Inspiration Association executive director Lai Rongwei told overseas Chinese media: “Because the system operates on political loyalty above all else, every CCP official focuses on flattering superiors and catering to political preferences. Corruption inevitably follows.”
Legal scholar Yuan Hongbing, now based in Australia, argued that the exposure of corruption within Xi’s personally cultivated faction has dealt a devastating blow to Xi’s prestige — one that, psychologically and politically, may exceed the impact of the Lin Biao incident on Mao Zedong.
Xi: ‘The emperor of failed projects’
Observers note that Xi has long used anti-corruption to eliminate rivals and consolidate control, repeatedly stressing the “absolute authority” of the central leadership. But as his closest allies have fallen, often amid serious corruption allegations, his anti-corruption narrative has increasingly become an object of ridicule.
According to Yuan Hongbing, attitudes inside Beijing’s political circles have undergone a profound shift. In the past, Xi was a taboo topic among officials. Now, officials privately mock and satirize him openly, with unflattering nicknames circulating widely in internal conversations.
Some compare the phenomenon to the final years of the Cultural Revolution, when officials quietly ridiculed the “Gang of Four.” Even mid- and lower-level officials reportedly express contempt, claiming they could govern better if placed in Xi’s position.
Nicknames such as “Steamed Bun,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and “Two Hundred Jin” are widely used in private. A leaked domestic database previously showed that over 2,000 sensitive terms are directly related to Xi—an expanding list that reflects the regime’s deep insecurity.
Yuan Hongbing said the resentment stems not only from Xi’s selective anti-corruption, which cut off officials’ career and financial paths, but also from his attempt to emulate Mao Zedong as a “Communist emperor,” refusing to share power with other elite CCP families. Many “red second-generation” families that once supported Xi have since been pushed out of the inner circle.
Another factor, Yuan argued, is Xi’s lack of credibility: “Xi Jinping’s talent and moral authority do not match his position. He demands ‘absolute loyalty,’ yet nearly every major project he has personally overseen, economic, cultural, or political, has ended as a failed project.” This, Yuan said, has earned Xi another nickname: “The Emperor of Failed Projects.”
A growing regime crisis
Yuan Hongbing concluded that CCP officials today are largely “two-faced,” engaging in passive resistance, inaction, and bureaucratic paralysis. As Xi’s personal authority collapses, the regime’s capacity to govern is deteriorating rapidly.
He stated that official resentment and public anger are now reinforcing each other, creating unprecedented pressure on the system: “Xi Jinping’s reckless rule has made him not only a public enemy, but also the target of anger from tens of millions of CCP officials. His downfall is inevitable.”
The convergence of popular resentment and internal elite discontent suggests, analysts argue, that both Xi’s personal rule and the CCP’s broader grip on power are approaching a dead end. For many in China, expectations no longer stop at the collapse of Xi’s leadership alone, but extend to the eventual collapse of the regime itself.
Editorial note: Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Vision Times.
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