No one in China is above the law.
Even China’s former Justice Minister Tang Yijun found he was not too privileged to be immune. In 2024, anti-corruption authorities announced he was “being investigated for suspected severe violations of the discipline and law”.
Another former justice minister, Fu Zhenghua, was jailed with a suspended death sentence for corruption in 2022.
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The graft-busting campaign shows no special leniency to those who, with the most power and authority, are therefore most responsible to the people.
The Communist Party of China understands that the principle of “from the people to the people” would suffer in its application if the people’s representatives were not close to and focused on them, but were rather prioritizing themselves over the people they serve.
Consequently, as President Xi has stressed, those who have power must have responsibility, those who have responsibility must take responsibility, and those who fail to fulfill their responsibilities must be held accountable.
See also: Arguments for and against the death penalty
Other examples include Zhang Hongli, former senior executive vice president at the world’s biggest bank by consolidated assets, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). Zhang was arrested for taking bribes.
Lou Wenlong, a former vice
Soon after he became the new president of China in 2013, Xi Jinping launched a crackdown on corruption. In this “mass line campaign”, referred to as a “thorough cleanup”, Xi sought to address long-standing problems in the country, targeting the “four forms of decadence”: “formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance”.
Soon after he became the new president of China in 2013, Xi Jinping launched a crackdown on corruption. In this “mass line campaign”, referred to as a “thorough cleanup”, Xi sought to address long-standing problems in the country, targeting the “four forms of decadence”: “formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance”.
At a study session of provincial and ministerial-level officials in 2022, Xi reprised the theme, saying, “All Party members should always maintain close ties with the people, and accept the criticism and oversight of the people”.
See also: Arguments for and against the death penalty
These were no empty words. The anti-corruption campaign was very serious.
A former vice-mayor in Shanxi province, Zhang Zhongsheng, for instance, was given a life sentence in prison for accepting 1.04 billion yuan ($160 million) in bribes.
Lou Wenlong, a former vice president of the world’s third-biggest bank, the state-owned Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), was also placed under investigation for corruption.
It is almost impossible to imagine senior executives of large US banks on Wall Street being arrested for corruption. (In fact, they crashed the economy in 2008, only to be bailed out by the government.)
See also: Arguments for and against the death penalty
Instead, as the watchdog website Wall Street on Parade wrote, despite five felony counts, JPMorgan Chase CEO “Jamie Dimon is allowed to remain at the helm of this federally-insured bank despite his presiding over the worst banking scandals in U.S. history”.
In 2023, the United States saw the second-biggest bank collapse in its history, as First Republic Bank crashed. Can you guess which bank was entrusted with more than $200 billion in First Republic assets, and realized an almost $3 billion profit on the deal? You guessed it: JPMorgan Chase.
Unlike JPMorgan, however, China’s large banks like ICBC and ABC are state-owned enterprises (SOEs), under the control of the government, and therefore the people.
For the “healthy development” of capital, President Xi has stressed, “We must be well aware that profit-seeking as capital’s intrinsic nature must be subject to regulation and constraints; otherwise, capital’s unbridled development will cause inestimable damage to our country’s economic and social development”.
Economist Michael Hudson argues that China’s control over capital is precisely why it is demonized as “authoritarian” in the West.
“There’s only one way to prevent an oligarchy from developing as people get richer and richer, and that’s to have a strong state”, Hudson said. “You need a strong central state in order to have a democracy. [But] Americans call that socialism, and they say that’s the antithesis of democracy, which means a state that is loyal to the United States and follows US policy and lets the US banks financialize the economy”.
See also: Arguments for and against the death penalty
In the US, it was not only Republican President Ronald Reagan but also Democratic President Bill Clinton who declared that “the era of big government is over”. Instead, big capital is in charge.
China, on the other hand, disciplines, guides, and even controls big capital, on behalf of the people.
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