Elite Power Competition and Corruption Investigation in China: A Case Study

Abstract

This article uses an investigation-trigger framework to explain the process that stimulates investigations of corruption in China, which has been treated more as a black box in the past. Reviewing China’s current anticorruption system, we argue that local party leaders’ decisions directly trigger corruption investigations, and that power competition between political elites is a major catalyst of the trigger. Moreover, drawing upon rarely accessible documentation and interviews addressing the successive downfall of two public security bureau chiefs in City H, we identify two channels through which the investigation-trigger catalyst works: the diminished patronage of corrupt officials after patron turnovers, and government insiders’ unconventional provocation of political opponents. The cases analyzed in this article also show that outside intervention may rupture the local protection of corruption and facilitate investigations. This finding supports the 2012 reform of China’s corruption control system.

Policy coordination and selective corruption control in China

“…A final concern is about the confounding variables, such as corruptness, which may lead to the covariance of reform policies and anticorruption attention. To rule out this possibility, we follow Zhu and Wu (2015), who estimate the levels of corruption in some industrial sectors using surveys of Chinese private enterprises conducted by the All‐China Federation of Industry and Commerce. We estimate the level of corruption in seven sectors, namely, agriculture , construction , finance , health , land & real estate, resources & environment , and technology , in eight years.…”

“…To address this question, we use the case of China, an authoritarian regime that has experienced rampant corruption in recent decades (Li & Gong, 2019;Sun, 2004;Wedeman, 2005) and has shown strong patterns of selective corruption control. Studies have explored the drivers of selective exemption or prosecution of corrupt officials and attributed them to a deficient anticorruption institution (Guo, 2014;Li, 2016b;Manion, 2004;Sapio, 2005) and power competition among political elites (Wedeman, 2017;Zhu & Li, 2020;Zhu & Zhang, 2017). An understudied facet of selective corruption control is that the Chinese procuratorate, the main state agency responsible for the investigation, prevention, and prosecution of corruption, has constantly shifted its anticorruption attention across different policy sectors.…”

“…An understudied facet of selective corruption control is that the Chinese procuratorate, the main state agency responsible for the investigation, prevention, and prosecution of corruption, has constantly shifted its anticorruption attention across different policy sectors. Its shifting attention is especially puzzling given the widespread corruption across Chinese industries (Zhan, 2017; Zhu & Wu, 2015) and the low likelihood that serious sectoral corruption will be resolved once and for all.…”

Too Cynical: why the Stock Market in China Dismissed Initial Anticorruption Signals

“…The Paradox of Anti-corruption Campaigns Why was Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaigna sensational and largely genuine effort in fighting corruptionnot taken seriously in the beginning? Although it has long been noted that anti-corruption campaigns could be driven by ulterior political motivations [4,12,64,66], the question we need to answer here is why a genuine campaign was initially dismissed. We develop an explanation that reveals an essential dilemma of anti-corruption campaigns: two crucial features that make anti-corruption campaigns work can paradoxically nurture cynicism, which leads to misinterpretations of the campaign.…”