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China's Xi Jinping Tightens Grip on Domestic Security Forces in First Broad Purge
Dozens of officials have been taken down in Mao-style rectification campaign; ‘scrape the poison off the bone’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-tightens-grip-on-domestic-security-forces-in-first-broad-purge-11597773887
Within the first week after the call to action, Communist Party enforcers had launched investigations into at least 21 police and judicial officials, according to a media tally cited by the party’s top law-enforcement commission. Dozens more have since been taken down, including the police chief of Shanghai, the most senior target thus far, and cadres who have won awards for good performance.
The rash of investigations marks the first time that Mr. Xi has unleashed a sweeping and systematic clean-up of the country’s powerful domestic-security apparatus. His push to forge police, prosecutors and judges who are “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable”—as officials running the campaign have demanded—points to thorny concerns that Mr. Xi faces at home even as he seeks to slow a downward spiral in relations with the U.S.
...
Mr. Xi has targeted senior law-enforcement officials in the past, including retired security chief Zhou Yongkang—who was jailed for life in 2015 for corruption and abuses of power—as well as two vice ministers of public security felled in disciplinary probes over the past two years.
In launching a wider effort, some analysts say, Mr. Xi appears keen to tighten his grip over agencies vital to maintaining social stability and upholding his personal authority, which could prove critical as he confronts a pandemic-ravaged economy and rising tensions with the U.S. that could kick up social ferment and fuel dissent against his leadership.
The rash of investigations marks the first time that Mr. Xi has unleashed a sweeping and systematic clean-up of the country’s powerful domestic-security apparatus. His push to forge police, prosecutors and judges who are “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable”—as officials running the campaign have demanded—points to thorny concerns that Mr. Xi faces at home even as he seeks to slow a downward spiral in relations with the U.S.
...
Mr. Xi has targeted senior law-enforcement officials in the past, including retired security chief Zhou Yongkang—who was jailed for life in 2015 for corruption and abuses of power—as well as two vice ministers of public security felled in disciplinary probes over the past two years.
In launching a wider effort, some analysts say, Mr. Xi appears keen to tighten his grip over agencies vital to maintaining social stability and upholding his personal authority, which could prove critical as he confronts a pandemic-ravaged economy and rising tensions with the U.S. that could kick up social ferment and fuel dissent against his leadership.
Odds on trump praising this move this week?
