The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) is the supreme supervisory organ of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCDI is elected and supervised by the CCP National Congress. It is tasked with defending the party constitution, enforcing inner-party regulations, coordinating anti-corruption work, and safeguarding the core position of the CCP general secretary Xi Jinping and the party as a whole. Safeguarding the political position of Xi and the Central Committee is, officially, the CCDI's highest responsibility. Since the vast majority of officials at all levels of government are also CCP members, the commission is, in practice, the top anti-corruption body in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
At its first plenary session after being elected by a CCP National Congress, the CCDI elect its secretary, deputy secretaries, secretary general and other Standing Committee members. The CCDI then reports the election results to the Central Committee, which can either approve or disapprove of the results. The CCDI Standing Committee is responsible for convening and presiding over plenary sessions of the CCDI. When the CCDI is not in session, its powers and responsibilities are delegated to the CCDI Standing Committee, which has to implement the decisions of the CCP Central Committee and the CCDI plenary sessions. It is held accountable to the CCDI plenary sessions. The secretary convenes, presides over the work and sets the agenda of the CCDI Standing Committee meetings. The current secretary is Li Xi, who was elected by the 1st Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and approved by the 20th Central Committee on 23 October 2022.
The modern commission was established at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in December 1978. Control systems had existed previously under the name "Central Control Commission" for a brief period in 1927 and again between 1955 and 1968, and under its present name from 1949 to 1955. It was disbanded during the Cultural Revolution in 1969. In 1993, the internal operations of the agency and the government's Ministry of Supervision (MOS) were merged. However, beginning with Hu Jintao's term as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2002, and especially following Xi Jinping's assumption of the party leadership in November 2012, the CCDI has undergone significant reforms to increase its autonomy. Since 2018, the National Supervisory Commission has acted as the state arm of the CCDI.
History Before the People's Republic The idea of a control system was inspired by Vladimir Lenin in The State and Revolution. Lenin argued that every communist vanguard party, at all levels, needed a system to supervise party-official elections, dismissals, and performance. His writings led to the establishment of the Soviet Central Control Commission. The control system and the party structure were imported by China. The importance of discipline and supervision was emphasized since the CCP's founding. The 2nd National Congress amended the party constitution, devoting a chapter to party discipline. However, no institution was established to safeguard party norms or supervise cadre behavior. Until the establishment of the Central Control Commission (CCC) at the 5th National Congress in 1927, local party committees were responsible for supervising members.
The 5th National Congress again amended the party constitution, adding a chapter on control commissions and their aims, but devoting little attention to their operations. Partly because of this, the control commissions actively participated in several party rectification campaigns during the late 1920s and early 1930s. At that time, the commissions tended to participate in political struggles, most notably the purges of Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming.
The control system was reorganized as the Central Review Committee (1928–1933), the Central Party Affairs Committee (1933–1945), and the Central Control Commission (1945–1949). Despite these changes, the duties and responsibilities of the control bodies remained vague until the amendments to the party constitution at the 7th National Congress in 1945. Although it may be argued that the 1945 amendments did little to clarify the role of a control body, the party leadership expanded on the theoretical reasons for its existence. It was argued in the party constitution that the control system "was born to serve the needs of a Leninist party for its ideological and organizational consolidation. Such a role was reinforced in the Party's frequent campaigns against its real or perceived enemies in and out of the party organization."
In 1949, the Central Committee established the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). It differed from its predecessors in several respects. It was responsible to the Politburo, and its local organizations were responsible for their corresponding party committees, despite the committees' authority to restrict their behavior. In reality, the CCDI was established to check all party organizations except the central leadership.
Political history During its early years, the CCDI was not a powerful institution. Although it focused on abuses by party veterans and senior officials, the CCDI rarely appeared on record at that time as investigating (or solving) those problems. The few mentions of CCDI inspectors in the press highlighted their failures. Despite the support of Mao Zedong and the central party leadership, it was often unable to fulfill its mandate in the provinces. According to a People's Daily editorial, party inspectors "gave up the struggle and proved themselves unable to persist in ... upholding the dignity of Party discipline when they encountered great obstacles." Aware of Yan'an Rectification Movement successes and CCDI failures, the party leadership used mass mobilization and ideological campaigns to tackle party corruption during the 1950s. In the wake of the Gao Gang–Rao Shushi affair, the CCDI was replaced by the CCC.
Although the CCC became a powerful political force in the following years, at the 8th National Congress in 1956, its inspectors were warned about abusing their power and becoming independent of their local party committees. Its power waned during the Great Leap Forward, but the CCC, the Secretariat, and the Organization Department became the chief weapons in the aftermath of the Great Leap to combat corruption and reverse verdicts on rightists. The CCC played its new role until the Cultural Revolution, a socio-political movement which lasted from 1966 until 1976, when it was affected by purges (partly due to its close ties to Peng Zhen, one of the first highly ranked officials purged during the Cultural Revolution). At the 9th National Congress in 1969, the CCC was abolished, removed from the party constitution, and replaced by special-case organizations (such as the Central Case Examination Group) formed under Mao and Kang Sheng. Despite its abolition at the congress, little criticism was directed at the CCC during the Cultural Revolution; although CCC Deputy Secretary Min Yifan was criticized by the Red Guards, a revolutionary youth movement independent of the party (but inspired by Mao) during the Cultural Revolution. Most of their disapproval focused on his career on local committees, rather than the CCC. Talk of an internal party-control system would not resurface until the death of Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976.
The CCDI was reestablished at the 11th National Congress in 1977. It had three goals: removing the social influence of the Gang of Four, implementing the leadership's cadre policy, and removing "despotic" local party secretaries, and reversing poor verdicts handed down during the Cultural Revolution. Due to the power struggle between Deng Xiaoping and Hua Guofeng, the control system was not implemented in 1977–1978. The 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in December 1978 formed a new control system under its 1949–1955 name, with responsibilities identical to those of the CCC before its abolition. After the 3rd Plenary Session, the CCDI convened its 1st Plenary Session and elected Chen Yun as First Secretary, Deng Yingchao as Second Secretary, Hu Yaobang as Third Secretary, and Huang Kecheng as Permanent Secretary. However, the election of these people (and others) was purely symbolic; the new CCDI consisted generally of people who had never been involved in control affairs, and overwhelmingly of members considered too young to be taken seriously. In its 1st Plenary Session, the CCDI stated three overarching goals: to "protect party members' rights", to enforce and safeguard the system of collective leadership "with the division of labor by the individual", and to generally oppose the over-concentration of power in one individual. It would combat corrupt tendencies in the party and handle individual complaints.
Although the press and the CCDI highlighted its fight against corruption, the commission was powerless against many "local despots": leaders who ruled largely by fiat. During the early 1980s, the 11th Central Committee was forced to enact emergency measures to combat corruption. Instead of fighting corrupt officials, the CCDI's local branches focused on the rank and file. It was an organizational weapon against the "leftists" (who advanced during the Cultural Revolution or supported it) and the "rightists" (supporters of bourgeois democracy). After weakening under Zhao Ziyang, CCDI power increased in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 under the tutelage of Deng and Jiang Zemin.
Despite the commission's position as the party's – and China's – leading anti-corruption agency, its leaders have admitted serious deficiencies in its work. CCDI Secretary Wei Jianxing allegedly tendered his resignation "on the eve" of the 5th Plenary Session of the 15th Central Committee in 2000 to protest the commission's impotence. His successor Wu Guanzheng found himself in a similar situation, allegedly tendering his resignation in August 2005. Although neither resigned before the end of his term, they were unable to increase CCDI independence from the committees or end the Central Secretariat's interference in its activities.
In late 2013, Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and head of China's security agencies, was placed under investigation by the CCDI for abuse of power and corruption, a decision state media announced in July 2014. Zhou was the first PSC member – and the most senior-ranked official – since the founding of the People's Republic of China to be tried and convicted of corruption-related charges. Following his investigation, Zhou was expelled from the CCP. On 11 June 2015, Zhou was convicted of bribery, abuse of power, and the intentional disclosure of state secrets. Zhou and his family members were said to have taken 129 million yuan (over $20 million) in bribes. He was sentenced to life in prison.
According to scholar Xuezhi Guo, "From 1992 to 2009, China brought disciplinary sanctions against approximately two million personnel". The CCDI cited similar numbers: "[B]etween July 2003 and December 2008, the CCDI had tried and closed 852,000 cases, resulting in 881,000 officials receiving disciplinary sanctions." In 2009, the CCDI imposed disciplinary sanctions on 106,626 party members and officials; 146,517 in 2010; 142,893 in 2011; 160,718 in 2012, and 182,000 in 2013. From 2012 to October 2017, disciplinary action started against 1.4 million communist party members. As of 2014, five of the 31 CDI secretaries were women: Huang Xiaowei, Hong Qiang, Zhang Xiaolan, Ma Yongxia, and Song Airong. Of these Zhang, at age 50, was currently the youngest serving CDI provincial secretary.
Institutional history Founding, abolition, and reestablishment (1949–1980)