W

h

a

t

I

s

X

i

F

i

g

h

t

i

n

g

?

T

h

e

D

y

n

a

m

i

c

s

o

f

C

o

r

r

u

p

t

i

o

n

i

n

P

o

s

t

-

M

a

o

C

h

i

n

a

Professor Andrew Wedeman (Georgia State University)

What Is Xi Fighting? The Dynamics of Corruption in Post-Mao China

Abstract

Analysis of the anti-corruption crackdown launched by Xi Jinping in late 2012, early 2013 shows its primary effect was to dramatically increase the number of senior officials – popularly known as “tigers” – charged with corruption. Heretofore, much of the debate about the crackdown has focused on who was been taken down and why. In this talk, I shift the focus away from the “who” and “why” questions to a deeper question: what led to the apparent proliferation of tigers in the years before the crackdown? That is, how did corruption spread among the senior ranks of the party-state? Drawing on data on the tigers’ involvement in corruption, I argue that corruption was “promoted” upward during the years that preceded Xi’s crackdown. Xi’s fight with corruption has thus been a battle with corruption that spread first among the middle ranks of the party-state and then moved upward into the leadership as corrupt officials rose up through the ranks. As such, Xi is not just fighting tigers, he is fighting a disciplinary system that failed to weed out corruption at the middle and low-levels.

About the speaker

Andrew Wedeman is a Professor of Political Science and the Director of China Studies at Georgia State University. He is the author of Double Paradox: Rapid Growth and Rising Corruption in China (Cornell) and From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China (Cambridge). He is currently working a book analyzing Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown tentatively entitled Hunting Tigers and Swatting Flies: Xi Jinping’s Battle with Corruption .

Registration

This webinar will take place online via Zoom. After registering, a separate Zoom registration link will be emailed to you closer to the date of the webinar. Online Registration

* The webinar will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page for those that are unable to participate via Zoom.

Chair: Professor Steve Tsang (Director, SOAS China Institute)

Organiser: SOAS China Institute

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk