News Analysis
A recent vote-buying scandal in China’s national legislature and a provincial congress, which has led to the sacking or resignation of hundreds of representatives, appears to be closely connected with power dynamics at the top of the regime.
Of 102 National People’s Congress (NPC) delegates from Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, 45 were dismissed on charges that they had bought their way into the legislature in 2013. The move came following the sacking of several provincial leaders over the spring and summer.
It comes as an apparent jab at Zhang Dejiang, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s 7-man leadership group—the Politburo Standing Committee—and the head of the National People’s Congress, China’s state legislative body.
Since 2013, the central authorities of the Communist Party have investigated and punished thousands of officials for corruption and other abuses of power in a campaign that has simultaneously removed many Party rivals of current leader Xi Jinping.
As head of the NPC Standing Committee, Zhang Dejiang—a native of Liaoning Province and, as various factors indicate, no friend of Xi—is dangerous in light of the upcoming 6th Plenum of the Party’s current round of leadership. At the plenary session will be decided the lineup of officials to enter vacant offices starting with next year’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party.
Speaking to Radio France Internationale, professor Chen Daoyin of the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law said that Xi Jinping intends the Liaoning scandal to be a platform to advance his preferred list of personnel for the upcoming 19th Party Congress.
“Xi will not allow anything to go wrong during this process,” Chen said. “He wants absolute control.”
