From top commanders to business intermediaries, Beijing intensifies scrutiny of corruption across the Party–military nexus
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has targeted senior military officials of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. The former is the vice-chair of the CMC, and also has a seat on the Politburo, while the latter is chief of its Joint Staff Department. In October 2025, then CMC vice-chair He Weidong and CMC member Miao Hua were axed from the body over graft probes.
Chinese media have reported that an investigation has been opened into their “corrupt practices”. It has been said that these two have been undermining and “seriously trampling upon” the CMC Chairman Responsibility System, fuelling “political and corruption issues” that affect the Party’s absolute leadership over the military and endangering the Party’s ruling foundation. They also stand accused of damaging the military’s political construction and combat capability construction. The litany of allegations gives the impression that they have been undermining Xi within the military ranks. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Zhang is said to have betrayed China’s nuclear secrets to the United States.
The anti-graft investigation authority pledged to look into corruption in sectors such as finance, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), energy, education, academic societies and associations, development zones, and bidding and tendering.
2026 began with the annual gathering of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), an important event in China’s political calendar, that furnishes a progress report of Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign, and also charts its future course. The anti-graft investigation authority pledged to look into corruption in sectors such as finance, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), energy, education, academic societies and associations, development zones, and bidding and tendering. Many party officials are also on the radar for accepting gifts and cash, and undertaking foreign travel under the pretext of “study tours” or “personnel-training exercises.
“Vanity-type” projects, “irregular” construction of government buildings and facilities will also be under the lens. Investigations will also include misconduct such as foot-dragging, bureaucratic inertia, and the phenomenon of ‘fān shāobǐng’ 翻烧饼, implying making policy U-turn for monetary gains. Priority will also be accorded to cases of collusion between the government and big businesses, officials providing protection and patronage to private enterprises, and business houses meddling in politics, seeking favourable policies. Investigators will also seek to burrow into concealed forms of turpitude like ‘proxy holdings’, and the phenomenon of xuán zhuǎn mén 旋转门, or the ‘revolving door between government and business’.
This conclave has been followed by a state-sponsored blitzkrieg on the fate and modus operandi of high-profile ‘tigers’ hunted down in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. A state documentary was released featuring former Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian, who received a suspended death sentence in September 2025 for pocketing more than 268 million yuan (US$38 million) in bribes over a period of nearly two decades. The disgraced politician confesses on air to using a ‘white-glove’ proxy businessperson, in this case an antique dealer based in Beijing, to pursue illicit deals. Businesspeople seeking favours were expected to contact the dealer to buy items at inflated prices. However, in this case, the figurines were not antiques, but replicas. Tang is also said to have helped his family members open a members-only club close to the ministry’s headquarters. Top corporate executives were expected to buy a membership that varied from 100,000 yuan (US$14,300) to 500,000 yuan (US$71,680). Tang reportedly organised meetings at the club, wherebusiness executives covered expensive luncheons, including wine bottles costing more than 10,000 yuan.
A state documentary was released featuring former Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian, who received a suspended death sentence in September 2025 for pocketing more than 268 million yuan (US$38 million) in bribes over a period of nearly two decades.
Another documentary highlighted the caseof former banker and Communist Party chief of Hubei province Jiang Chaoliang, who was sacked following public outrage over mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in Hubei’s capital Wuhan. Jiang was a high-flying executive in China’s financial sector, and was Chairperson and Party Secretary of the Bank of Communications, Vice-Chair and President of China Development Bank, and Chairperson and Party Secretary of the Agricultural Bank of China. A businessman, Li Yuanguang, is said to have cultivated close relations with Jiang’s family, paying for Jiang’s children’s education and healthcare for his parents.
Li Yuanguang’s bet paid off when Jiang, as head of the Agricultural Bank of China in 2011, helped the former’s company bag a large contract for the procurement of automated teller machines. In the spotlight are Jiang’s Chaoliang two brothers: Jiang Binliang and Jiang Zhongliang, who acted as proxies and benefitted from the slush money.
The CPC’s narrative has also zeroed in on bribes channelled through cryptocurrencies that are difficult to trace. A documentary in China cites the investigation into Yao Qian, the former director of the Digital Currency Institute at the People’s Bank of China, who is accused of acquiring a villa in Beijing for more than 20 million yuan (around US$2.9 million) in the name of a family member. Investigations found that Yao had been given 2,000 ether coins by the director of an e-currency firm he had helped to list on an exchange. Yao was head of an elite team that developed the digital renminbi and also oversaw technology supervision at China’s securities regulator. Thus, anti-corruption investigators are increasingly looking into newer forms of money laundering and into the financial activities of CPC officials’ family members.
Investigations found that Yao had been given 2,000 ether coins by the director of an e-currency firm he had helped to list on an exchange.
To conclude, there could be a temptation amongChina watchers to look at the current disarray within China’s military ranks with a sense of schadenfreude, yet if history is any guide, China has used internal chaos as a pretext for external belligerence to rally disparate elements in the Party-state. Two, the anti-graft body, in its drive to weed out corruption, talks about scrutiny of the bribe-giver and bribe-taker with a cross-border anti-corruption law. This development will have ominous portents for overseas businesses as it presents the possibility of Beijing extra-territorialising its law.
Kalpit A. Mankikar is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Kalpit A Mankikar is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme and is based out of ORFs Delhi centre. His research focusses on China specifically looking ...
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