By Li Jingyao, Vision Times
China’s anti-corruption campaign reached an unprecedented scale in 2025, with nearly one million officials disciplined in a single year, according to newly released data from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission.
While state media framed the figures as evidence of resolve, political analysts and China watchers argue the numbers instead expose the structural failure of leader Xi Jinping’s decade-long anti-graft drive, and the deep-seated corruption embedded within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system.
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Record-breaking enforcement
According to the CCDI report released Jan. 17, disciplinary authorities nationwide opened 1.012 million cases in 2025 and punished 983,000 individuals, including 69 provincial-ministerial–level officials or above. Another 90,000 village-level party secretaries and committee heads were also disciplined.
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The totals mark a sharp increase from 2024, when 877,000 cases were filed and 889,000 people punished. Year over year, case filings rose 15.4 percent, while punishments increased 10.6 percent, the highest figures since the CCP began publishing national statistics more than 20 years ago.
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As noted by the “The Wall Street Journal,” the 2025 data shattered all previous records, underscoring the expanding scope of the campaign rather than its effectiveness. Despite the numbers, a closer look at the breakdown reveals a familiar pattern: The overwhelming majority of those punished were township, village, and lower-ranking officials, while senior elites made up only a tiny fraction.
Wang Ping (pseudonym), a Chinese historian, told overseas media the figures reflect the CCP’s long-standing practice of shifting responsibility downward rather than addressing institutional flaws. “Problems that should be resolved at the system level are ultimately turned into personal accountability,” said Wang. “The rules at the top remain largely untouched. When something goes wrong, lower-ranked officials are the ones left to take the fall.”
Multiple analysts described how these officials serve as a buffer zone for systemic risk, absorbing blame while those who design policies and control resources remain largely insulated.
A tacit admission of failure?
On Jan. 12, Xi addressed the opening of the CCDI plenary session, once again invoking the phrase known as the “two remains,” that the anti-corruption struggle “remains severe and complex,” and that eliminating the conditions breeding corruption “remains arduous and long-term.”
Independent scholar Lai Jianping said the repeated phrasing amounts to an acknowledgment that corruption is unavoidable under one-party rule. “No matter what you do, you cannot prevent CCP officials from being corrupt,” Lai said. “Unchecked power will always seek rent-seeking opportunities.”
Lai added that the campaign functions less as reform than as a political instrument, used to discipline rivals and reinforce centralized authority.
‘A public self-slap’
Veteran journalist Wang Jian was even more direct. He noted that Xi declared at the CCP’s 19th Party Congress that officials already “dare not be corrupt” and that the campaign had achieved “overwhelming victory.” He added, “Eight years later, Xi is still talking about the ‘two remains.’ That means he’s admitting he botched it. After more than a decade, anti-corruption has ended in failure. This is a public self-slap.”
Wang argued the failure stems from Xi’s abandonment of institutional restraint. “You can only control corruption by putting power in a cage,” he said, adding, “Instead, Xi uses loyalty as the standard. And Xi himself leads by example in corruption.”
According to Wang, the promise that anti-corruption will “never stop” ultimately serves to justify Xi’s continued consolidation of power, not to eliminate graft.
A systemic breeding ground
The BBC has identified two major waves in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign: the first from 2013 to 2016, when political rivals were purged as Xi consolidated authority, and the second from 2023 through late 2025, during which 154 senior officials fell. Wang Jian noted that roughly half of those caught in the second wave were Xi’s own appointees, reflecting intensifying internal struggles rather than clean governance.
A political scholar interviewed by overseas media said placing nearly one million people under discipline in a single year signals governance under extreme strain. “When a system relies on constant punishment of lower-rank officials to function, it shows it has lost the ability to correct itself through normal mechanisms,” he said.
Hu Ping, honorary editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring, concluded that corruption has worsened under Xi, not improved. “Not only are there more cases, but the amounts involved are larger,” said Hu. “Many fallen officials were personally promoted by Xi. That alone declares the failure of his anti-corruption campaign, and once again proves the system itself is a breeding ground for corruption.”
