Following a series of investigations into National People’s Congress delegates bribing their electors, the Chinese Communist Party’s central authorities have removed nearly half the national-level representatives from the key northeastern province of Liaoning in what looks to be the next step in the Xi Jinping administration’s struggle to consolidate and maintain control.
The removal of 45 out of 102 delegates to the National People’s Congress (NPC)—the country’s Party-controlled legislature—representing the industrial rustbelt province was announced on Sept. 13 in a report by the state body. They are charged with having bribed those who elect them to the NPC.
Of the 619 provincial legislators who voted, 523 are believed to have received bribes from the NPC delegates. This figure includes 38 of 62 provincial-level People’s Congress Standing Committee members, who either resigned from their posts in disgrace or were removed, the mainland Chinese publication Caijing reported.
So many delegates to the Liaoning People’s Congress resigned or were removed that a special “preparations group” was dispatched to facilitate the continued operation of the provincial legislature.
The purge in the People’s Congress comes just weeks after the recent investigation and removal of officials holding leadership positions in Liaoning’s provincial administration as well as its capital city of Shenyang.
NPC delegates bribing electors, and officials more generally bribing those who may appoint them to office, is common in China. But the case of the Liaoning delegates is the first time the NPC has openly charged delegates with and disciplined them for bribing voters.
The holding of a position in the NPC opens doors for individuals to enrich themselves or gain various kinds of favors, and so delegate hopefuls have been willing to pay for these positions.
Earlier, two incidents of delegates bribing electors at the local or municipal levels were publicized. The first was in the prefectural municipality of Hengyang in Hunan Province, in 2012 and 2013; the second case was opened and resolved by the central authorities last year and involved bribery in Nanchong, Sichuan Province, in 2011.
Although similar charges could likely be brought widely at the provincial level in China, the Liaoning mass purge of NPC delegates is, so far, unique.
Like many events in the broader anti-corruption campaign being carried out by Chinese leader Xi Jinping since his ascension to power in 2012, the purge in Liaoning appears to also be an assault on the lingering influence of Jiang Zemin, the former Party head whose faction’s presence is still strongly felt in regime politics.
Liaoning, the most populous of three provinces that make up Manchuria or Northeast China, is an unavoidable stepping stone toward the consolidation of Xi’s power: for decades, it has been used as a stomping ground for Jiang and his allies, where they have left an inglorious legacy of bribery, economic decay, and clandestine mass murder.
