Xi became China’s most formidable leader in decades through a campaign of anticorruption purges. Few are beyond his reach.
. Party enforcers punished some 627,000 people for graft and other offenses last year, roughly four times the number in 2012, when Mr. Xi took charge, according to party data.
Mr. Wang himself had served as China’s anticorruption czar for five years, when he ran the withering crackdowns that helped Mr. Xi consolidate control in his earliest years in power. Over the past two years, antigraft enforcers have increasingly gone after people inside Mr. Wang’s political and personal circles.
By scrutinizing people close to his longtime friend, party insiders say, Mr. Xi is sending a message that he’ll dismantle all potential power centers and intimidate opponents. But because the challenge is indirect, those targeted might not be so fearful that they’d organize resistance against him. Mr. Xi’s unrelenting purges could ultimately consume the party. They have antagonized members of the political elite and discouraged lower-level officials from making decisions for fear of running afoul of Beijing. Mr. Xi himself has complained that bureaucrats are failing to implement his directives as theyThe purges also risk making China’s political system less resilient over time by leaving senior leaders less willing to challenge Mr. Xi and debate policies.
Sometimes Mr. Xi authorizes investigations against a close associate of a high-ranking official under the pretext of demonstrating the associate’s honesty, thereby making it hard for the senior official to intervene, some of the people said. Party insiders say Mr. Xi appears to have used some of his subtler approaches against Meng Jianzhu, a former Politburo member and security chief who retired in 2017.
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