Eight Rules. Eighty Problems. Endless education. One perfect cadre.
Just when they were supposed to be busy rescuing the economy.
After General Secretary Xi Jinping dies and they open up his chest, my bet is that they’ll find the characters 八项规定 (The Eight Rules) engraved on his heart. If anything summed up his governance ethos, that’s it. And from now until July we’ll be hearing a lot more about it. Local officials all over the country are tensing up again as (yet another) “Eight Rules” education campaign is kicking off.[1] While visiting Yunnan last week, Xi reminded everyone of what’s planned, demanding an end of “evil and malicious work habits” (让歪风邪气没有市场).
The Eight Rules are a signature initiative of Xi’s. He introduced them straight out of the gate in December 2012 for his fellow Politburo members.[2]
The idea, as Xi described it, was for the Party’s senior leadership to set an example for everyone else in clean government and a practical workstyle. In October 2017, they published the detailed rules for the Politburo. And I mean detailed. Everything from which airplane you could use to fly overseas[3], how long your speech can be at an old colleague’s funeral, how many minutes of screentime you’re permitted on CCTV’s evening news (新闻联播) for your visit or meeting. Rules on how many colleagues you can take with on a local visit, bans on tourism, concerts and banquets while you’re on the road, and the size of the hotel room you can stay in.
There were some not-so-subtle flexes in the Politburo rules too. Like banning any Politburo member (or central organ) from sending out orders (指示性文件) to local government or ministries without pre-approval from the (Xi-controlled) General Office. Or putting a strict limit on overseas travel – only once per year for non-Standing Committee Politburo members. And one can’t but admire how Xi slipped in those limits to CCTV screen time (and Xinhua coverage) for his Politburo ‘peers’. Oh, and only the General Secretary’s voice should be heard on CCTV.
So, at the elite Politburo level the Eight Rules wasn’t so much about reducing the fun, so much as setting detailed constraints on the public activities of people Xi didn’t trust. In June 2013, Xi hosted a special three-day Politburo meeting (photo below) in which each made a “checkup” (对照检查) of their implementation.[4]
And every year since then the Politburo’s annual Democratic Life (民主生活会) meeting in December hears a report on their adherence to the Eight Rules, and Xi makes comments and further requests.[5] I wonder who gets full marks.
And for everyone else
But, of course, the Eight Rules for the Politburo were just the amuse-bouche. The big action was for everyone else, and Party Center soon started pumping out the rules for them. Xi’s enemies – lethal threats to the Party in his view – were formalism (形式主义), bureaucratism (官僚主义), hedonism (享乐主义) and, err, ‘extravagance-ism’ (奢靡主义). [6] (Youshu is also firmly opposed to all these vices, though regretfully lacks the General Secretary’s power to extinctify them.) In other words, Xi wanted his people to achieve real things and be spotlessly clean. And his campaign transformed the lives of all Party-government officials.
Forbiddance of banquets, gifts, “study tours” (especially those overseas), outside-of-work use of government cars and drivers, flowers at conferences, cigs and booze at the few dinners you were allowed, entry to (cough, cough) “health clubs” and private member clubs. All meetings and travel must be pre-approved and expensed strictly. All income must go to your unit’s official budget, rather than being transferred to the more-accessible budgets of your trade union or training center. Limits on the number of people who can attend a meeting. Bans on using a meeting or travel budget to buy a photocopier or fax machine. Repaying your Chinese hosts for the (simple) dinner they just treated you too (though while overseas you’re allowed to let your hosts pay, as long as that’s been pre-approved.) Absolutely no visits on official business to twenty-one named famous tourist spots (Red history sites are OK as long as there’s a good work reason). Fewer, shorter reports. Give up your office after you retire. Here’s a useful list of 80 actions you’ll be wanting to avoid.[7]
Basically, everything you did at the office during daytime that was fun and everything you did in the evenings before rocking up at home: banned.
But it’s worse than that, because the rules are so broad. Here are the standards for cleanliness and self-discipline that came out in 2015:[8]
Party members integrity and self-discipline norms (党员廉洁自律规范)
1. Adhere to the distinctions of public-private, public before private, work selflessly in the public interest (坚持公私分明, 先公后私, 克己奉公).
2. Adhere to worshipping honesty and rejecting corruption, be a pure person, work cleanly (坚持崇廉拒腐, 清白做人, 干净做事).
3. Adhere to frugality and avoid extravagance, work hard and live plainly, be diligent and thrifty (坚持尚俭戒奢, 艰苦朴素, 勤俭节约).
4. Adhere to being the first to bear hardships, the last to enjoy comforts, be devoted (坚持吃苦在前, 享受在后, 甘于奉献).
Party members and leading cadres clean and self-discipline norms (党员领导干部廉洁自律规范)
5. Have integrity in governance, consciously maintain the character of a servant of the people (廉洁从政, 自觉保持人民公仆本色).
6. Use power cleanly and consciously safeguard the fundamental interests of the people (廉洁用权, 自觉维护人民根本利益).
7. Be clean and honest and cultivate one’s moral character, consciously enhance the ideological and moral realm (廉洁修身, 自觉提升思想道德境界).
8. Manage the household cleanly and honestly, consciously take the lead in establishing a good family atmosphere (廉洁齐家, 自觉带头树立良好家风).
Got that? What was once a job has become a vocation. It’s not just meeting your KPIs (考核指标) anymore, now it’s about leading a life of purity and devotion.
Just as at the Politburo, every year “Eight Rules” assessment reports are compiled at all levels of government. Even if you’ve avoided the shark fin soup, you’ve now got an even tougher assessment of your workstyle (and lifestyle) to get through. At the annual meeting, and presumably from now until the summer in the Eight Rules study sessions, everyone will have to offer up confessions/self-criticisms (检讨) to the group.
Fortunately for the cadres, there’s a whole on-line industry of prepared examples of the kinds of things they’ll need to say.[9] “My study of the Eight Rules was not deep enough, etcetera”, “I didn’t implement the Eight Rules comprehensively enough, etcetera.” (Given tight budgets though, this industry must also be having a hard time.) It must be a pretty miserable experience.
So, what are the take-aways?
First the boss has not – and will never – let up on Party discipline. Saving the Party from the dynastic cycle of rise and collapse requires a ‘self-revolution’ (自我革命) in behavior and spirit. As he admitted right back in 2012, officials may be unhappy with the new constraints, but “the people” will feel happier. And they are.
Second, there’s been a lot of complaining that the Eight Rules interfere with economic development. All that wining and dining of potential investors (应酬) is of course out. And more importantly, the risks of doing anything even slightly off-book to get around a stifling regulation are up. Beijing’s “tone” (基调) on the economy has changed since September 2024 – they do seem to be trying harder. But there is a risk that the pivot will be delayed and undermined by this study campaign. Risk aversion will rule.
Third, the amazing Professor Pei Minxin recently examined the data from the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission (CDIC, 中国共产党中央纪律检查委员会) on official punishments.[10] There’s been a massive increase in recent years – it’s way up on what many assumed was the high-water mark of 2015-16. Prof. Pei concludes that the driver of the massive increase in (usually minor) punishments is not so much due to the misuse of funds or dining out, but political and organizational violations, things like lack of loyalty, forming factions etc. His main evidence is that revisions to the CCP’s Code on Penalties Against Disciplinary Violations (中国共产党纪律处分条例) have, during Xi’s tenure, expanded the language on those types of things, rather than on money or “lifestyle” problems. Maybe. But it is also possible, I think, that the sheer breadth of what’s been determined to be a money/lifestyle problem means than many more violations can be found.
Fourth, call me a cynic (“Cynic!”) but it seems to me that corruption has not completely disappeared. Perhaps the PLA’s Rocket Force leadership just did not do enough Eight Rules reading? Or maybe there’s a more fundamental problem.
I’m not sure I agree with Professor Wu Guoguang, who is awesome, on why we’re seeing so many purges/detentions/sackings. Prof. Wu recently argued that Xi needs scapegoats for the governance failings that result from his over-concentration or power.[11] It’s their ‘sabotage [which] causes policy failures and makes the Great Leader’s further consolidation of power necessary and more desirable for better governance’. I agree with the second bit, but I’m unsure about the first claim.
Of course, the system is still set up to facilitate corruption for those with the right backers. And the over-concentration of power creates problems like Zero COVID lasting way too long. But it’s striking that in official reporting on fallen cadres they are rarely blamed for concrete policy failures. Surely if the point was blaming them for failures, you’d blame them.
But the crimes they’re supposed to have committed are usually rather vague. A hundred million renminbi in bribes, yes, we don’t hear for what. No one went down for their “over-zealous” implementation of Zero COVID. My preferred (and possibly simplistic) explanation is, instead, that Xi simply will not countenance the types of institutions – more independent media, NGOs, even other political parties – that can more effectively monitor the ruling class.
So he can just do education campaigns and tell the CDIC guys and gals to keep going as hard as nails until he breeds perfect cadres. But we’ll know what’s engraved on his heart before then.
[1] 中共中央, ‘中办印发《通知》在全党开展深入贯彻中央八项规定精神学习教育 [The Central Office Issued a Circular to Carry out Party-Wide Study and Education on the in-Depth Implementation of the Spirit of the Eight Rules of the Central Committee]’, 17 March 2025, https://archive.ph/2wJwU, https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202503/content_7014017.htm. Local party committee are responding, e.g. Haidian District Party Committee [海淀区委], ‘海淀区委常委会召开会议 研究关于在全区开展深入贯彻中央八项规定精神学习教育的工作方案等事项 [The Standing Committee of the Haidian District Committee Held a Meeting to Study the Work Program and Other Matters Concerning the Study and Education on the in-Depth Implementation of the Spirit of the Eighth Rules of the Central Committee in the Whole District]’ (海淀区人民政府 [Haidian District Government], 20 March 2025), https://archive.ph/jJnxY, https://www.beijing.gov.cn/ywdt/gqrd/202503/t20250320_4039939.html.
[2] 中共中央, ‘中共中央政治局贯彻落实中央八项规定的实施细则 [Implementation Rules of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CCP for Implementing the Eight Provisions of the Central Committee]’, 27 October 2017, https://archive.ph/ptf2l#selection-315.0-315.24, http://jjw.slxy.cn/info/1203/4607.htm.
[3] Cue the excitement over Premier Li Qiang apparently downgrading himself to a chartered plane (包机) in 2023 when the Eight Rules allows him use of “Airforce Two” (i.e. one of Chinas two专机). Li clearly understood his old “friend’. See 文慧 [Wen Hui], ‘李强“伴君如伴虎” 出访破例放弃专机 [Li Qiang “Being Close to the Emperor Is Like Lying with a Tiger” Broke Precedent and Gave up the Special Plane]’, 新唐人 [New Tang Dynasty], 20 June 2023, https://archive.ph/s63fZ, https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2023/06/20/a103734757.html.
[4] CCP Central Committee, ‘中共中央召开专门会议 对照检查八项规定落实情况 [The CCP Central Committee Held a Special Meeting to Check the Implementation of the Eight Provisions.]’ (新华社 [Xinhua], 16 June 2013), https://archive.ph/QBN5Z, http://www.npc.gov.cn/c2/c238/201905/t20190521_202331.html.
[5] For example, at the most recent one, General Secretary listened to the report on his fellow Politburo members and then made comments (点评) and ‘raised requests one-by-one’ (逐一提出要求). 中共中央, ‘中共中央政治局召开民主生活会强调 巩固深化党纪学习教育成果 在加强党的纪律建设上发挥示范引领作用 中共中央总书记习近平主持会议并发表重要讲话 [The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CCP Held a Democratic Life Meeting and Emphasized Consolidating and Deepening the Achievements of Study and Education on Party Discipline, and Playing an Exemplary and Leading Role in Strengthening the Construction of Party Discipline]’, 10 January 2025, https://archive.ph/cIo95, http://www.dangjian.cn/xxhywx/2025/01/10/detail_202501107007150.html.
[6] These four were latter bundled up as the “Four Winds” (四风).. ‘四风 [Four Winds]’, n.d., https://archive.ph/cZOcE, https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四风.
[7] ‘违反中央八项规定的80条清单 [A List of 80 Articles That Violate the Eight Rules of the Central Committee]’, 审计观察[Audit Watch], 18 March 2025, https://archive.ph/NncCP, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/MpmiHbh_iCbO6yZAPkUnjA.
[8] ‘中国共产党廉洁自律准则(全文) [Full Text of the Code of Integrity and Self-Discipline of the CCP]’ (新华社 [Xinhua], 21 October 2015), https://archive.ph/jbNTj, http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/chinese/sz/news/201511/t20151123_800043151.html.
[9] For example: 爱花纹迷网 [Patriot Clerk Web], ‘落实中央八项规定专题民生生活会个人对赵检查材料集合8片 [Collection of Eight Pieces of Material for Individuals Undergoing Examination on the Topic of People’s Livelihoods in a Implementation of the Eight Rules of the Central Committee Meeting]’, 8 January 2025, https://archive.ph/XqJ0e, https://www.ahwmw.com/dangtuanfanwen/121421/.
[10] Minxin Pei, ‘From Purge to Control: A Recent Pivot in Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Crackdown’, China Leadership Monitor, no. 83 (7 February 2025), https://www.prcleader.org/post/from-purge-to-control-a-recent-pivot-in-xi-jinping-s-anti-corruption-crackdown.
[11] Guoguang Wu, ‘Xi Jinping’s Purges Have Escalated. Here’s Why They Are Unlikely to Stop’, ChinaFile, 25 February 2025, https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/xi-jinpings-purges-have-escalated-heres-why-they-are-unlikely-stop.