Introduction In February 2012, it was revealed that Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai — a Politburo member and Party Secretary of Chongqing, a provincial-level city in southwest China — had been arrested and charged with murdering an English…
In late 2012, early 2013, newly selected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping ordered an intensification of the regime’s ongoing attack on corruption. Party investigators and the Procuratorate would, he declared, not only “swat at flies” (the rank…
Suing the Rural Chinese State and the Shift from Tax Reform to Land Seizures Introduction Beginning in the 1990s, both scholars and central officials repeatedly suggested that taxes and fees imposed on peasants[1. We use the term “peasant” here with…
This piece was originally published by the China Policy Institute: Analysis, based at the School of Politics and International Relations, the University of Nottingham. An earlier article in China Currents that lays a foundation for this one is available here,…
The Communist Party of China has been grappling with corruption almost from its birth. Corruption was one of the major issues during the 1989 anti-government demonstrations. The leadership, in fact, responded to public anger over corruption and what was then…
After the beginning of the post-Mao reform period in 1978-79, China experienced a marked worsening of corruption. The pre-reform period was not free from corruption, but a series of large-scale mass campaigns during the 1950s and 1960s had largely driven…
“Xinfang,” or petitioning to authorities, has been one of the channels for the Chinese people to air grievances and seek justice since ancient times. But it has taken a new and disturbing shape in the current era of economic reform. In fact, there has been an ever intensifying, nationwide, though uncoordinated, active petition movement in China since the late 1980s.