President Xi Jinping describes his tenure in power as the “new era” and embarks on a gigantic national exercise to “discipline” the communist party and the cadres for better governance.
In the second week of January, he addressed the plenary session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China opened in Beijing that opened on January 9.
The Chinese state media reported that Xi Jinping pointed out discipline is the “rule” for governing the party. It is also the standard and compliance for party members and cadres to restrain their behavior.
The president proposed placing discipline in a more prominent position, and “strict requirements must be implemented in the entire process of party rule formulation, party discipline education, and discipline enforcement supervision”.
The idea behind the proposal is that “iron discipline can ‘grow teeth’ and show off its power, and let cadres pay attention, vigilance, and know how to stop”.
The exercise will now begin to ensure that the party commits itself to a high degree of awareness of compliance and discipline. Coming from the top, the decree is unambiguous about its intent: “Make the whole party form a high degree of awareness of compliance and discipline.”
As the new rule book says, every member of the communist party “must firmly establish the awareness of the Party Constitution, more consciously study the Party Constitution, abide by the Party Constitution, implement the Party Constitution, and maintain the Party Constitution”. A state media report even issues a caution: “Get into the habit of working and living in a supervised and restrained environment.”
Why has President Xi launched this exercise after getting the third term? There is a ready explanation: To promote the new great project of party building in the new era to provide a strong guarantee for the comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country to get off to a good start.
Xi Jinping explained to the party that realizing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities depends on improving the party’s unified leadership – a euphemism for centralized power — comprehensive coverage, authoritative and efficient supervision system.
Xi Jinping told the plenary that the discipline inspection and supervision organs are an important force in promoting comprehensive and strict governance of the party. He wants the party leaders and cadres to be loyal to the party, shoulder heavy responsibilities bravely, dare to fight tough battles, be good at fighting, and always charge at the forefront in protracted battles.
After the plenary, the word of Xi is being propagated across the country. The message is concise: It is necessary to improve the internal control mechanism, consciously accept supervision from all sides, strictly manage disciplinary inspection and supervision cadres, severely punish corrupt elements in the system, and resolutely prevent “black under the lights”.
The ultimate objective of the disciplinary exercise is also spelt out clearly, “to strictly enforce the law and discipline, resolutely eliminate black sheep, and build a loyal, clean and responsible iron army with iron discipline”.
The principle of discipline is expected to re-orient eight central regulations to be in sync with the “new era”. They include continuing to rectify hedonism and extravagance, grasping the regional, industry-specific, and phased characteristics of style construction, grasping common and recurring problems, deepening rectification, and promoting normalized and long-term style construction.
The logic behind the new drive is that once total party discipline is achieved, it becomes easier to implement “political supervision”. Xi calls it a “powerful measure to urge the whole party to adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee”. The communist government will now see to it that there is effective supervision of all aspects of governance on a daily basis to keep everyone on their toes and as a warning that big brother is always watching.
The Chinese president’s focus on fighting corruption remains strong and is now linked to the discipline principle. “We must continue to increase pressure on not daring to be corrupt and always maintain zero-tolerance deterrence and high-pressure punishment. We must firmly punish those who do not restrain themselves and act recklessly. We must resolutely investigate and deal with the corruption that is intertwined with political and economic issues.”
For this, the laws and regulations on punishing bribery are to be “improved” further. Punishments for the culprits will also be more severe. It will be an act of discipline to “severely crack down on those so-called ‘political liars’ who have ‘backgrounds’.”
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