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Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign
Opinion
SCMP Editorial
Editorial
SCMP Editorial

China’s anti-corruption campaign is here to stay

Hong Kong has a role to play as a new national law seeks to expand the anti-corruption legal framework beyond the country’s borders

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Chinese President Xi Jinping looks on as People’s Liberation Army honour guard hold party flags during a ceremony marking the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July 1. Photo: Reuters
SCMP Editorial
Editorials represent the views of the South China Morning Post on the issues of the day.
China’s anti-corruption campaign has proved to be a sustainable drive rather than a transient clean-up exercise. More than 13 years after President Xi Jinping launched the crackdown with a pledge to hunt both “tigers and flies”, it has become a pillar of Communist Party governance. Its continuing escalation in the run-up to key leadership changes anticipated next year carries a strong and clear message: corruption is not merely individual misconduct within the government structure but a systemic threat to the authority and well-being of the nation.

That message matters profoundly to China’s future development. A country of immense scale, with an economy undergoing a difficult structural adjustment and bearing increasingly consequential global responsibilities, cannot afford public power to be compromised by private privilege. Not only does corruption destroy the level playing field for all and weaken confidence in institutions and leadership, it also entrenches local interests and encourages the pursuit of short-term personal benefits over the long-term public good.

The scale of the problem has been put into perspective in a recent series of reports by the South China Morning Post. There were no fewer than 65 investigations involving senior officials in 2025, compared with 19 in 2013, when Xi took over as president. Nearly 1 million party officials were disciplined last year.

The figures for 2026 suggest that the momentum has continued rather than slowed down. Provincial governments have accounted for a large share of senior targets, while officials in resource-rich provinces have been particularly exposed. Retirement, once seen by some as a protection against further scrutiny, has ceased to provide immunity.

This is an important shift. It signals that anti-corruption enforcement is becoming a permanent discipline rather than a campaign that fades away over time. It also dispels an old assumption that distance from Beijing gives local cadres greater latitude. The traditional saying, “the mountains are high and the emperor is far away”, is increasingly incompatible with probes targeting senior officials across the country and scrutinising complex financial arrangements.

There is no sign of the crackdown easing in the run-up to the expected leadership change in the coming year. Xi’s anti-corruption policy is being further institutionalised with a new law to expand legal powers beyond borders. The proposed Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law, submitted for its first reading by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee last month, is expected to provide a clearer legal framework for pursuing cross-border corruption, recovering assets, collecting overseas evidence and addressing the flight of suspects and illicit gains. Its detailed provisions are yet to be published but the direction is unmistakable: China is seeking to adapt its anti-corruption regime to the reality that public-sector corruption increasingly has extraterritorial dimensions.
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