How Xi Jinping’s war on corruption has driven more of it

Under Mao, calling someone a political scammer was a way of insulting a rival. The term referred to someone who was feigning loyalty to the chairman

China’s Communist Party likes to crow about its efforts to protect the public from scammers. Hundreds of thousands of them have been arrested in a sweeping crackdown this decade on rackets that are conducted online and by phone. But Chinese leaders also worry about another kind of swindle: one that primarily targets the powerful. In recent years, senior officials have often been exposed as dupes of “political scammers”. State media says that the problem is rife.

Chinese President Xi Jinping(AP)

Under Mao, calling someone a political scammer was a way of insulting a rival. The term referred to someone who was feigning loyalty to the chairman. In recent years the label has been revived with a different meaning. It is now used to describe con artists who pretend that they are politically well-connected in order to make money. They often promise that they can help gullible officials get promoted, in exchange for some combination of gifts, favours or cash. Cases are said to surge when the party conducts its five-yearly leadership shake-ups—a process that involves hundreds of thousands of jobs being shuffled at every level. China will enter such a period next year in the build-up to the party’s 21st congress, which is likely to be held in the autumn of 2027.

According to state media the party chief, Xi Jinping, first mentioned political swindlers publicly in 2023 when he demanded a “severe strike” against them. The party’s anti-graft agency described the scammers as “rampant”, calling them “parasites on the chain of corruption”. That year the party introduced a new rule threatening punishment not just of the scammers but of the officials they hoodwink. One cannot be conned by a swindler—the thinking goes—unless one has been trying to gain a more senior job, or other benefits, by underhand means.

But some officials are clearly not getting the message. On October 9th a former chief of the party’s Organisation Department in the eastern city of Anqing was expelled from the party for various offences, including “making friends with political scammers”. He would have been a useful friend to make: the job he used to hold controls local appointments.

The people who have been targeted by scammers even include a few who are close to the very top. One example is Fu Zhenghua, a former justice minister who had also served as China’s second highest-ranking police official. He was given a suspended death sentence in 2022 for corruption. Mr Fu’s offences allegedly include conducting years-long relationships with political scammers. One of these crooks was a retired police officer who had falsely claimed to have connections who would be able to advance Mr Fu’s career. Another was masquerading as a senior adviser to Chinese leaders. And according to state media, both of the fraudsters used the reputations they had themselves gained from being seen as chums with Mr Fu to facilitate their own business deals.

Stories such as this hint at the insecurity of senior cadres as they try to navigate a murky political system where cultivating good guanxi, or personal relations, is seen as vital for success. In May Wang Yilin, a former boss of China National Petroleum Corporation, a state-owned energy firm, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for accepting millions of dollars in bribes. Some of the money was in return for jobs he secured for others. He was also alleged to have been taken in by a scammer who claimed to have inside knowledge of Mr Wang’s own likely promotions.

Mr Xi’s battle against the con men is part of his relentless war against all forms of corruption; so far millions of officials have been punished. But this has created new opportunities for the scammers. State media say that fraudsters are banking big sums by promising frightened officials that they will use their purported connections to get graft-busters off their backs. “Some leading cadres…regard political scammers as a comfort and a lifeline,” wrote two Chinese scholars in an academic journal in August. Some scammers end up so well connected that they come to wield genuine political clout.

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