General secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the second plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in Beijing, capital of China, January 9, 2023. Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi attended the meeting. Photo: Xinhua

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, stressed on Monday the need to make ceaseless efforts in promoting full and rigorous Party self-governance and ensuring the implementation of decisions and plans made at the 20th CPC National Congress. 

Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while addressing the second plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.

Analysts said the key for the CPC's anti-corruption campaign in its second centenary journey after the 20th CPC National Congress would be system construction and institutional development, as effective long-term sustainable self-governance and supervision that can deal with long-standing problems like corruption, misconduct and bureaucratism require a comprehensive and mature system to allow Party self-governance to keep up with the concept of law-based governance. 

"It will be long-term work that requires ceaseless efforts in combating corruption, and is crucial to ensuring the governance of the CPC in the country," Yang Xuedong, a professor of political science at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Monday.

More importantly, it's also a continuous campaign to combat corruption that needs system construction with comprehensive supervision, and the meeting's fundamental goal is to make sure the CPC's important decisions can be implemented correctly and effectively at different levels of the whole Party, Yang said. 

Analysts said the work of discipline inspection is not just about fighting corruption, and in recent years, problems like bureaucratism and misconduct, which in fact are a form of irresponsible "sloth administration," have seriously damaged the interests of the people, the normal operation of society, and the image of the Party. Therefore, the main task in the work of discipline inspection in the future will also focus on dealing with these problems to further improve the governance capability of the CPC.

Zhang Xixian, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday, "We need to fully implement the Party's decisions and plans of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, but it's also important to oppose mechanically copying or one-sidedly executing the decisions," because this may eventually distort and undermine the correctness and effectiveness of the Party's decisions at the grass-roots level. 

Before the key session of the top Party discipline authority, the downfall of three more senior officials and the release of a new documentary on ex-justice minister Fu Zhenghua and his corrupt clique signaled the Party's determination and perseverance in fighting corruption in the new journey after the 20th CPC National Congress. 

The first anti-corruption documentary since the 20th CPC National Congress was aired Saturday by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), with the first episode focusing on ex-justice minister Fu Zhenghua and his corrupt clique led by ex-vice public security minister Sun Lijun, which has drawn widespread attention.

Experts said the documentary shows the CPC will maintain high pressure to deter corruption within the Party, and by showing the consequences and lessons of corrupt senior officials, as well as the law-enforcement process, the CPC is trying to keep educating the Party members to be loyal to the Party's central leadership and whole-heartedly respect and follow Party discipline, as well as show the Party's transparency and confidence in its anti-corruption campaign to the public.