Top anti-graft body vows more concrete measures

China's top anti-graft body has vowed to advance discipline inspection and supervision work with higher standards and more concrete measures in the second half of 2026, focusing on strengthening political oversight, combating grassroots corruption and enhancing coordination among supervisory bodies.

The sixth plenary session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing on Saturday. Li Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CCDI, addressed the session.

The session reviewed work carried out in the first half of the year and called for steadfastly following the Chinese path to combating corruption while promoting high-quality development of discipline inspection and supervision.

In the first half of this year, authorities nationwide filed 538,000 cases and punished 412,000 people, according to the CCDI and the National Commission of Supervision.

CCDI plenary sessions are generally held at the beginning of a year, but may also be convened midyear for major matters, interim reviews, personnel elections or to implement major decisions of the CPC Central Committee.

The session emphasized the importance of maintaining a correct view of performance and strengthening political oversight. It called for deepening political inspections, strictly enforcing discipline in leadership transitions and consistently improving conduct.

The session called for enforcing discipline, combating corruption and continuing concentrated rectification of misconduct and corruption at the people's doorsteps, in order to ensure the high-quality completion of all tasks for the year.

Tasks closely connected

Ji Yaping, a professor at Northwest University of Political Science and Law, said these tasks are closely connected. Political oversight should focus on whether officials truly follow a people-centered approach, implement central decisions, work pragmatically and respect objective laws, rather than pursue vanity projects or emphasize statements over results. Oversight itself should also avoid formalism and instead focus on effectiveness, Ji said.

Yang Weidong, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said this year is both the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) and a year when local leadership transitions are taking place, making implementation of central decisions and prevention of risks during personnel changes particularly important.

Ji from Northwest University of Political Science and Law said that supervision during leadership transitions should ensure officials are selected according to standards of integrity and competence, while procedures remain lawful, transparent and subject to public oversight.

The meeting also called for continued concentrated rectification of misconduct and corruption affecting people's daily lives. Experts said that punishment should be combined with prevention, with greater emphasis on regulating the exercise of grassroots power.

Ji said that oversight should cover the authorization, exercise and supervision of power throughout the process to reduce opportunities for abuse.

Li Zhiwei, a lecturer at China University of Political Science and Law's School of Discipline Inspection and Supervision, said the effectiveness of grassroots anti-corruption work should not be measured simply by the number of cases handled, but also by whether the number of recurring problems declines, governance improves and people see tangible benefits.

Better coordination urged

Additionally, the session emphasized systematic and bottom-line thinking, calling for better coordination among different forms of supervision.

Experts said the discipline inspection authorities' work should be supervised by people's congresses, government departments and judicial, auditing and financial authorities, as well as the public and the media, so that different supervisory mechanisms reinforce rather than duplicate one another.

Yang said such coordination should also help identify deeper institutional and governance problems through individual cases and prevent similar misconduct from recurring.

The meeting also called for stronger internal oversight and continued efforts to make discipline inspection and supervision more standardized, law-based and regularized.

In the first half of the year, 1,685 discipline inspection and supervision officials were placed under investigation and 1,535 were punished.

Experts said that stronger self-supervision should be matched by better professional training, practical experience and internal checks. Ji called for narrowing capability gaps across regions and guarding against outside interference.