Hammering nails

Xi has transformed the Party and the country through the eight-point rules. Yet, he remains keenly aware that the mission is far from accomplished.

"Certain areas have grown lax, some blind spots remain unaddressed, and unhealthy practices have begun to resurge," Xi noted last week during his inspection tour.

One high-profile case in December 2022 underscored the persistence of misconduct.

Six senior officials in northwest China's Qinghai Province held a drinking spree in the dormitory of the provincial Party School, in a blatant violation of rules.

The hours-long drinking session led to severe consequences the next day. One of the officials was hospitalized due to a heart attack, while another died from alcohol intoxication.

Investigations revealed that these officials had formed a clique over the years of socializing, leveraging their positions to exchange favors. They all received severe punishments.

Following the 20th CPC National Congress in late 2022, China's disciplinary agencies have handled 768,000 cases of malpractice and corruption at the grassroots level, imposing penalties on 628,000 officials.

In January this year alone, disciplinary agencies nationwide investigated and addressed 16,430 cases of violations of the eight-point rules.

"Conduct issues are recurrent and deeply entrenched; they cannot be resolved overnight or eradicated through a single decisive campaign. We must avoid superficial, short-lived efforts that fade like a passing gust of wind," Xi has warned.

At a top-level anti-corruption meeting in January, Xi identified the deeply intertwined nature of misconduct and corruption as a "prominent problem" and called for an integrated crackdown.

The latest education campaign marks Xi's renewed push to tackle the issue. During talks with local officials last week, he cautioned against mere surface-level compliance, stressing that such an approach runs counter to the eight-point rules themselves.

"Like hammering a nail, we must strike it a few more times," he said, "until the change becomes deeply ingrained in people's behavior and way of thinking."

(By Xinhua writers Zhou Xiaozheng, Xu Lingui, Wang Di, Cheng Zhuo, Yu Xiaohua, Cao Peixian, and Zhang Bowen)