Money-related corruption is one form of corruption in China. Disloyalty to Xi Jinping or being suspected of being disloyal to Xi Jinping, who is presented as the incarnation of the Chinese party-state and the national will, is another form of corruption.
Observers often contend that Xi’s fight against the first form of corruption, Corruption One, bribes and kickbacks and robbing the till and the like, tend to be a cover for or merge into the fight against the second form of corruption, disloyalty to Xi.
The Old One-Two
Corruption One can be a manifestation of Corruption Two, but the real problem, for Xi, is Corruption Two, disloyalty to Xi and the Xi-directed CCP.
We can assume that the dictator is loyal to himself and therefore that he will not be held accountable for his own indulgence in Corruption One, his own money grabbing—that is, not anytime soon, and not at any rate by dint of an anticorruption campaign led by Xi Jinping.
But we know that Xi and appointed relatives have been raking in the dough (“U.S. intel says China’s Xi Jinping holds $1 billion in hidden wealth through family,” Washington Times, March 21, 2025).
Chinese President Xi Jinping has amassed more than $1 billion in assets through relatives, according to a U.S. intelligence report made public Thursday revealing “endemic” corruption at all levels of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
The report stated that as many as 65% of all government officials in China receive unofficial income through bribery or graft—despite more than a decade of anti-corruption efforts that have ensnared over 5 million Chinese Communist Party officials.
“Corruption is an endemic feature of and challenge for China, enabled by a political system with power highly centralized in the hands of the CCP, a CCP-centric concept of the rule of law, a lack of independent checks on public officials, and limited transparency,” the report said.
The report suggests that Mr. Xi’s high-profile 13-year campaign as president to stamp out corruption has been a failure.
Failure? Xi is still in power.
The report said determining exact levels of corruption among senior Chinese leaders is difficult despite “indications that corruption remains widespread.” However, research published in 2012 identified the families of two senior leaders, then-Premier Wen Jiabao and then-incoming president, Mr. Xi, as having “amassed significant wealth,” the report said.
The report said Mr. Xi’s siblings, nieces, and nephews “held assets worth over $1 billion in business investments and real estate.”
The new intelligence report is inadequate, even embarrassing in its dearth of detail, some opine.
“This pathetic seven-page report, two and a half years in the making, is an insult to Secretary of State Rubio who requested it by law in December 2022, Director [Tulsi] Gabbard who released it, President Trump who needed it to protect our nation, and the American people who funded it,” said Paul Berkowitz, a China expert and former congressional aide.
The intelligence community was given ample time to produce a thorough account of the wealth of Chinese leaders but did not do so, he contended.
“Chinese leaders have murdered millions of Americans through illicit fentanyl,” he said, “And they won’t stop until the details of their wealth are known by the Chinese people and American political leaders led by President Trump.”
I begin to doubt the expertise of this China expert, Berkowitz, who believes that “millions” of Americans have been “murdered” by illicit fentanyl (ingested at the point of a gun?); which, he also believes, Chinese leaders will stop permitting to be exported once further details of their ill-gotten gains are widely disseminated. No, Berkowitz. The CCP officials don’t care. They will just keep barreling along.
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: “China’s Corruption and Anti-corruption Are Forever”
StoptheCCP.org: “Hopium Exhausted in Battle Against China’s Fentanyl Precursors”
