The Anti-corruption Discourse of China: Cracking down on "Tigers"

Fighting corruption has been a signature theme in the governance of China since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) in 2012. Among the extensive attention from academic and policy discourse to this unprecedented anti-corruption effort in CPC's history, there are studies that take the one-sided view that the effort under way is not anti-corruption in its strict sense as it relies on the Party mechanism rather than the legal system, scripted, and calculated for the narrow self-interest of factional power enhancement. Reviewing contemporary fundamental anti-corruption discourses, anchored in critical discourse analysis, and assisted by 134 circulars of intra-Party disciplinary punishments of corrupt high-ranking officials ("tigers", dalaohu), this interdisciplinary study reveals that, by contrast, China adopts an integrated approach to corruption, which incorporates republican and liberal-rationalist beliefs and values. Specifically, it is characterized by CCCPC as leadership, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection as political agency, both following a mentality of the rule of law, and by the coordination between intra-Party disciplinary rules and state laws. This approach is appropriate because it conceptualizes corruption by targeting the main feature of the corruption-related problem. This study contributes from a discoursal perspective to the understanding of China's anti-corruption in the Xi Jinping Era.