They can’t scrape the poison off fast enough
More punishments of cadres in 2025, including more off to jail.
The crusading people at the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission (CDIC, 中国共产党中央纪律检查委员会) have just released their disciplinary data for 2025.[1] General Secretary Xi Jinping (习近平) describes their mission as scraping the poison off the bone (刮骨疗毒) of the bureaucracy. The results suggest that the poison is growing faster than they can scrape.
The total people punished (处分) in the Party and government systems hit a record last year: 983,000. Given there are some 7mn of them[2], that’s 14%. Accumulate that over a few years, and I’d guess at least 50% of cadres have been punished in some form or other in the past decade. The number’s probably considerably higher.
Overall, as far as the number of punishments meted out to officials at the ministry (正部/副部级), department (正厅/副厅局级), county (正处/副处级) and township (乡科级干/副乡科级) levels of government are concerned, they were similar to 2024, and down from the peaks of the late 2000s. (We’re excluding punishments meted out to village (村级) cadres here).
However…when you just look at ministers, the leadership cadres, 2025 it was another bumper year: 69 were punished, compared to 73 in 2024.
Now, punishments range in severity – from type #1 to #4. If you’re a type #4 case, you’re handed over to the criminal prosecutors. After a trial of a day or two, you’re off to Qincheng prison if you’re a minister[3], or if you’re very unlucky (and/or haven’t played ball with the prosecutors and/or know too much), prison and then a quick bullet in the head.[4]
A type #3 case gets you demoted, and a #2 leads to a formal warning (and notes in your personnel file). A type #1 disciplinary infraction results in a conversation which, the CDIC hopes, makes you ‘blush and sweat’ (红脸出汗) a bit.
Unfortunately the CDIC does not break down these types of punishment for each level of government. But we do get the breakdown of the total punishments meted out.[5]
So it’s clear that this is a system which is meting out a lot of formal warnings and uncomfortable conversations. In his excellent work, Pei Minxin has shown that the Party’s disciplinary code has been expanded to give the CDIC much more discretion in disciplining its members.[6] As I explained a while back, that includes the infamous 'Eight Rules (八项规定)’, which again dominated 2025.
Focusing in on the most serious type of infractions, there was a big jump last year: there were over 87,000 instances. However, since an official can commit a bunch of these in the course of his/her glorious career, the chart doesn’t unfortunately tell us how many of them were jailed.
What’s in store for 2026? The CDIC has also recently started releasing data on how many cases are being opened (立案) – and this year that rose again, to 183,131.
And just looking at minister-ranked officials again – they were up again to 115, against 73 in 2024.
So as these cases work through the system, 2026 will likely see even more punishments meted out by the CDIC.
More bone scraping to come then. Until cadre morals improve.
[1] Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission website [中央纪委国家监委网站], 中央纪委国家监委通报2025年全国纪检监察机关监督检查、审查调查情况 [The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission Issued a Report on the Supervision, Inspection, and Investigation Work of Discipline Inspection and Supervision Organs Nationwide in 2025.], 17 January 2026, https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/toutiaon/202601/t20260117_470450.html.
[2] ‘中国公务员总数首次披露：716.7万人 [The Total Number of Chinese Civil Servants Has Been Disclosed for the First Time: 7.167 Million.]’, Xinhua Web [新华网】, 21 June 2016, https://archive.ph/rb5LA, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2016-06/21/c_129077723.htm.
[3] Dedicated as it is to minister-ranked (and above) cadres.
[4] As happened famously in the case of Lai Xiaomin (赖小民), the former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management. He was sentenced January 5 2021, and shot 24 days later. Almost all death sentences for cadres get commuted.
[5] Oh-so-helpfully these numbers do not match the numbers for punishments meted out by rank. I suspect the punishment numbers include multiple offences for each individual.
[6] Minxin Pei, ‘From Purge to Control: A Recent Pivot in Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Crackdown’, China Leadership Monitor, no. 83 (February 2025), https://archive.ph/hvea6, https://www.prcleader.org/post/from-purge-to-control-a-recent-pivot-in-xi-jinping-s-anti-corruption-crackdown.