When He Shen, the most corrupt official of the Qing dynasty, was ousted after 24 years as a court favourite of Emperor Qianlong, investigators discovered a hoard that shocked even those used to the extravagance of the imperial Forbidden City.

The treasure included tens of thousands of gold and silver ingots, hundreds of European clocks, bolts of silk and 24 solid gold beds, inlaid with jewels, on which to entertain his harem of 600 women.

His wildly acquisitive period controlling the imperial court’s revenues planted the seeds of corruption and nepotism that eventually led to the fall of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The current government under President Xi Jinping is well aware of the lesson of He Shen.

The crackdown on corruption in China is aimed at ensuring that He Shen’s excesses should not find a contemporary equivalent at any level of the Communist Party. Xi, who is the architect of the campaign, has said anti-corruption efforts should target low-ranking “flies” and powerful “tigers”.

The Communist Party, as a Marxist Leninist organisation, is well aware of the importance of understanding history, and Xi has painted the anti-corruption campaign as essential to the party’s survival. “The preponderance of facts tells us that the more severe the corruption problem becomes, it will ultimately lead the party and the nation to perish,” Xi said in November. “We must be vigilant.”

During the Ming dynasty, 150,000 officials were executed for corruption, including 152 senior officials. They were killed in grotesque ways, such as by slicing off their skin.

Fast-forward to the photograph in the Chinese media of Ji Jianye, mayor of the city of Nanjing, waving a flag in the happy days before the Supervision Ministry came calling and started to investigate him for “economic problems”, the common euphemism for corruption.

While nothing has been said officially, an online report on the People’s Daily said Ji’s case may have involved some 20 million yuan (€2.4 million).

The party is trying to shore up its legitimacy as its new leaders tackle corruption, and for Xi fighting graft is essential if the party is to maintain its 64-year hold on power.

It is also about ensuring support for Xi’s programme of reforms, which will be part of the agenda at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee scheduled for November.

So far the crackdown on corruption has netted some big fish. The biggest is Bo Xilai, the former party boss in Dalian and Chongqing who was purged last year, and was recently sentenced to life in jail for corruption and abuse of power. Bo looked destined for the very top until he disappeared from public view in April last year after a scandal set off by the poisoning of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, by Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai.

However, Bo’s downfall came before Xi took over in November, and while it is being seen as part of the crackdown, it probably has more to do with a faction fight among the elite in the Communist Party.

Perhaps of greater significance is the rumoured investigation of former security czar Zhou Yongkang, who has his power base in the oil industry.

The nationwide graft crackdown has so far netted a handful of senior officials, among them former executives of the hugely powerful state-run China National Petroleum Corporation.



Former protégé

One of the first cadres to be detained on suspicion of corruption was a former protégé of Zhou, Li Chuncheng, deputy party secretary of Sichuan province. They also include Jiang Jiemin, the director of the commission overseeing China’s major state-owned companies.

The investigation into China’s oil giant also has extended to one of the energy industry’s richest self-made entrepreneurs, Hua Bangsong, chairman of Shanghai-based Wison Engineering Services, a PetroChina supplier.

The Communist Party has 80 million members in China.

Much of the crackdown has been about showing the state-owned organisations who is boss. Such organisations have tremendous power, possibly even enough muscle to scupper the government’s plans to reform the economy, which includes a programme of reform of government industries.

The government has also launched an investigation into PetroChina’s former head of Indonesian operations.

The respected writer, scholar and historian Zhang Lifan – whose father Zhang Naiqi was persecuted during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the 1950s, and who suffered himself during the Cultural Revolution – believes the current crackdown on corruption is all about Xi and the leadership establishing its authority ahead of the November plenum. “This crackdown on corruption has many political meanings. Anti-corruption is a sharp tool for political struggle,” said Zhang.

While the “princelings” who have inherited the country control the economic arteries, they hate corruption, because for them the country is a war trophy from their parents, and no one can steal money from their families, he said.

The current leadership considers the previous incumbents weak. “It is like the current red generation is a major shareholder, while the previous leaders were professional managers. So the current leadership is going to revive the family business. Everything they are doing is establishing authority for the plenum, such as the sentencing of Bo Xilai, and the investigation of former Politburo member, Zhou Yongkang,” said Zhang.

“By encircling and annihilating the oil and gas interest group they will close the net. The result is not in place yet so we can’t say the current leaders have already established authority or have won.”

He believes Xi is eager to establish himself as a strong leader. “When he visited Russia, he said to Putin that his personality was similar to Putin’s,” he said.

“According to the history of the Communist Party, any clean-up campaigns can’t last longer than a year. If the time goes on too long, the system can’t take it. So I think this crackdown on corruption will only last a year until it reaches its political goals.”

In the past few weeks, the central government has dispatched 10 inspection teams to investigate reported misdeeds by officials. The inspectors have been checking out local government departments, state enterprises, universities and other bodies. Their mission has been to uncover damaging behaviour by officials, including trading power for money, abusing power, hedonism and overt extravagance.

“There is a real attempt to deal with corruption, and about 10 of the vice-minister/deputy provincial governor level people have been brought down,” said Steve Tsang of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.



‘Power struggle’

“A significant number of the others have connections to Zhou Yongkang, which may suggest that there is an element of power struggle involved. But the lack of a clear pattern overall suggests that it probably really reflects a real attempt to deal with corruption,” said Tsang.

“There is also the angle of carefully managing the scale of corruption to be unveiled, as this anti-corruption campaign is about restoring the party’s credibility more than anything else, including anti-corruption per se.”

Last month, the Politburo drafted a 2013-2017 work plan “for the establishment and improvement of the corruption punishment and prevention system”.

“The party vowed to resolutely stop the spread of corruption, describing it [as] a major mission for the whole Party, and to strictly deal with discipline violations,” it said.

A major mission to stop history repeating itself and to prevent the Communist Party from joining the list of China’s fallen dynasties.