China’s education minister has vowed to drive ‘smart alecks’, dissenters and thieves from the country’s classrooms as Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign came knocking at some of the country’s top universities.

Xi launched a major offensive against corruption after taking power three years ago and has so far ordered his investigators into ministries, state-owned companies, provincial governments, media groups and the energy sector.

In recent weeks they have turned their attentions to the world of academia with a series of university chiefs toppled for allegedly flouting Communist party rules.

In late November, three senior officials at China’s premier journalism university were punished for engaging in illicit acts of “hedonism and dishonesty” including driving luxury cars. Since then a further three heads have rolled.

The director of China’s top music school, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, was given a “stern warning” after throwing an overly extravagant wedding for his daughter.

Yang Fangchun, the vice president of the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, was axed after allegedly filing fake expense reports.



And Liu Ya, the vice president of the University of International Business and Economics, was dismissed for “raking in” money while moon-lighting from his day job.



Writing on the website of the Communist party’s anti-corruption agency, education minister Yuan Guiren lamented the “shocking” abuses that had taken root on Chinese campuses.



The punishment of misbehaving academics sent “a strong signal that the construction of clean and honest government and the anti-corruption movement is a battle that we cannot lose,” Yuan wrote.



The minister called for greater “political screening” of academics before they were hired.

The extent of the rot within Chinese academia became clear on Thursday when Cai Rongsheng, the former admissions chief at one of China’s top universities, went on trial in Nanjing.



State media said Cai confessed to taking 23.3 million yuan (£2.4m) in bribes from students between 2005 and 2013, including the daughter of a wealthy Hong Kong businessman.



Zhi Zhenfeng, an academic from the government-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times newspaper the university crackdown was designed “to strike fear in people and to reform their behaviour”.

In his essay, the education minister, said the well-being of the Communist party and Chinese higher education was threatened by the misdeeds of “smart alecks who mislead their supervisors and defraud their subordinates”.



“All levels of party organisations, party members and cadres in the education system must remain vigilant, take action [and] show self-control,” added Yuan, who is the former president of Beijing Normal University.

Yuan sparked controversy earlier this year when he claimed hostile “enemy forces” were attempting to infiltrate university campuses in order to turn young minds against the party.



Books that attempted to spread western values in Chinese education needed to be banned, the minister added.



Liberal academics say the discussion and study of sensitive topics has become increasingly difficult under Xi Jinping, who is now entering his fourth year as Communist party chief.

The consequences of the anti-corruption drive may already be being felt in academia.



The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had been set to hold a three-day conference next week about Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” economic plan.

But in recent days participants were told that the event - to which foreign academics were to be flown business class - was abruptly cancelled. Organisers blamed budgetary issues.



Additional reporting by Christy Yao