Since the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress in 2012, Party discipline inspections have purified the Party and improved the CPC's internal governance.[Special coverage]
Since the congress, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee have held 23 meetings on inspections. The central leading group for inspection has held 115 meetings.
While listening to reports on inspections, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, stressed for more than once that the Party is fighting a pitched battle against corruption, where regional corruption is intertwined with sectoral corruption, corruption in official selection is intertwined with corruption in uses of power, and corruption in economic realms is intertwined with corruption in political realms.
Over the past five years, new ways of inspections were invented, such as "precise strike," or "surprise re-visit."
During 12 rounds of inspection by central inspection authorities, 277 Party organizations have been examined, 16 provincial-level regions have been re-examined and flexible inspections of four institutions under central control have been carried out.
The 18th CPC Central Committee is the first in Party history to inspect all CPC organizations in provincial-level regions, central CPC and government organs, major state-owned enterprises, central financial institutions and centrally-administered universities in one term.
More than 60 percent of investigations into centrally-administered officials were a result of information found by discipline inspectors.
Inspection teams discovered the misconduct of senior officials such as Sun Zhengcai, Su Rong and Huang Xingguo.
Clues found by inspectors also led to the investigation of systemic corruption in Shanxi Province, as well as electoral frauds in Liaoning, Hunan and Sichuan provinces.
Inspection teams sent by provincial-level authorities discovered 58,000 clues of corruption, resulting in the investigation of 1,225 city-level officials and 8,684 county-level officials.
A total of 3,133 CPC officials have been held accountable for undesirable work styles.
Inspectors checked conduct in selection and promotion of officials and found 1,600 major violations.
Inspectors also found problems of weak Party leadership.
Central inspectors have received nearly 1.6 million visits and letters from the public and talked with over 53,000 CPC members or members of the public for violation tip-offs.
Since the congress, the central inspection teams have made 59 reports to leading officials of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. The inspectors also transferred more than 9,400 cases of violations or clues to the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CPC Central Committee's organization department or other authorities.
