Beijing Launches ‘Big Investigation’ Across Multiple Ministries, Provinces

Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army's Honour Guard Battalion march outside the Forbidden City, near Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, China, on May 20, 2020. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

News Analysis

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is reportedly conducting a “big investigation” into various areas of the state, including several provincial authorities and key ministries.

Li Yanming, a U.S.-based expert on China, said this will result in a new round of political purges.

“The so-called investigation campaign came after Xi Jinping secured his power for the third term [in March],” Li told The Epoch Times on April 6.

“It reflects an escalation of infighting in the CCP,” he said. “The turbulent political situation in China is full of significant uncertainties.”

Li said that Xi had launched the “big investigation” to further consolidate his power, which will lay the groundwork for a more considerable purge.

As part of the move, Li said Xi’s crony Wang Xiaohong, minister of the Public Security Ministry, issued an official work plan for “Promoting Investigation and Research in Public Security Agencies Across China” on April 2.

The plan aims to defend the “political security of the CCP.”

It also emphasized “how to learn from the lessons of the ‘Sun Lijun political gang.’”

Sun Lijun, a former member of the Party Committee and vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security, was sentenced to death on Sept. 23, 2022, suspended for two years, and had all his personal property confiscated. Sun was a henchman of a faction loyal to CCP ex-leader Jiang Zemin, who died in November last year.

Jiang and his ally Zeng Qinghong were rivals of Xi.

file image of then China's Vice-president Zeng Qinghong (R) looks on while then member of the Politburo Xi Jinping (L) fills his ballot during the fifth plenary session of the CCP's rubber-stamp legislature in Beijing on March 15, 2008. Feng Li/Getty Images

Extending to Major Provinces, Cities

The Hubei provincial authority said on its official website on April 6 that the province was embarking on a “big investigation.”

This would see the province joining other regions such as Liaoning, Jiangsu, Guangxi, and Shanghai in efforts to keep pace with the Central Committee, which had claimed on March 19 to “promote investigation and research in the CCP” in 12 fields, including politics and law, finance, and ideology.

Jiangsu authority said that local Party cadres would take the lead in launching special surveys and research in the entire province.

Financial systems will also be looked into, as outlined by Xuan Chang, the vice governor of China’s Central Bank, on April 4.

The “vigorous investigation and research” of financial systems will include “how to incorporate various economic activities into supervision and guard the bottom line against systemic risks,” Xuan said at the China Finance Association’s 2023 academic conference, according to a report on Chinese portal Sina.

On the same day, the mouthpiece People’s Daily published a commentary declaring that more efforts should be made to make the investigation and research “more profound and practical.”

(L-R) Newly-elected Chinese state councilor Qin Gang, state councilor and secretary-general of the State Council Wu Zhenglong, state councilor Li Shangfu, China's Vice Premiers Zhang Guoqing, Ding Xuexiang, He Lifeng, Liu Guozhong, Chinese state councilors Wang Xiaohong and Shen Yiqin swear an oath after they were elected during the fifth plenary session of the CCP's rubber-stamp legislature in Beijing on March 12, 2023. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Why a ‘Big Investigation’?

Li argues that two factors explain why Xi intends to “investigate” the CCP on a large scale after he came to power:

First, the communist regime is currently in internal and external difficulties, and crises from domestic population, food, economic, financial, social morality, and security are intertwined.

However, the data in CCP officialdom and various fields are, to some extent, falsified.

In this case, “it is necessary to map out the situation of the crisis in each area” for Xi, said Li.

Second, Xi’s former political rivals Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong’s powerful clique had a long history of manipulating critical sectors, state-owned enterprises, and the banking industry, which were all crucial to the country’s livelihood.

“Crises in various areas of Chinese society are closely tied to internal struggles at the CCP’s high-ranked interest groups,” Li said.

In less than half a year since the 20th Party Congress ended on Oct. 26, 2022, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has declared the arrests of 23 central management cadres—those appointed by the Central Committee and filed with the CCP Organization Department, generally at the vice-ministerial level or above. Sixteen of these were investigated in 2023, and nine of whom fell in less than a month after the two sessions, including three financial executives: Li Xiaopeng, former party secretary and board chairman of the Everbright Group, Liu Liange, former party secretary and chairman Bank of China, and Fan Yifei, a member of the Party committee and vice president of the People’s Bank of China, or China’s central bank.

Many senior officials at the provincial and local levels have fallen from power, with political and legal affairs, military industry, finance, and state-owned enterprises being the main targets of the purge since Xi again took office last year.

Political Movements

According to Li’s analysis, the investigation campaign in the CCP’s history is somewhat related to the life-and-death crisis of the communist regime.

A “Great Investigation and Research” was proposed by the communist regime’s first leader Mao Zedong.

Mao called on the entire Party to “promote investigation and research” at the 9th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee in early January 1961, when the country’s economy was in serious plight, and his governance was questioned by the Party, and internal struggles in the CCP intensified.

This occurred after Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, which eventually led to the Great Famine of 1958-1962, where tens of millions of Chinese died.

A small group of Chinese youths walk past several dazibaos, the revolutionary placards, in February 1967 in downtown Beijing during the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". Since the Cultural Revolution was launched in May 1966 at Beijing University, Mao aimed to recapture power after the failure of the "Great Leap Forward." Vincent/AFP via Getty Images

At the “Seven Thousand Cadres Conference” (the Central Committee’s enlarged working meeting) in early 1962, then-state chairman Liu Shaoqi criticized Mao’s Great Leap Forward and other policies. This angered Mao, who started the Four Cleanup Movement in 1963 as a precursor of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which Liu was tortured to death.

Eliminating Dissidents

Ji Da, a China expert, told The Epoch Times on April 6 that the so-called investigation and research campaign is a product of the CCP system.

“The communist regime conducted frequent campaigns because it needed to centralize control through campaigns, which manifested itself in the exclusion of dissidents,” Ji said.

As a totalitarian power, “if the CCP wants to do anything, they must have an utterly submissive team, so they have to exclude dissidents,” Ji said.

“The authoritarian system has a high degree of monopoly of power and absolutely no sharing [with others]. Otherwise, the rigid system will not work.”

The CCP must always eliminate dissidents as it fears reprisals by dissidents if they get hold of power, Ji said.

Therefore, the Party keeps cleaning up dissidents, offending others, and making more enemies. Finally, they will be isolated and heading to a dead end, Ji said.