Integrity labels: OFFICIAL POLICY / OFFICIAL RECORD / EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT / CURRENT FCM GOVERNING ALTERNATIVE
Evidence base: 2012 anticorruption-campaign-launch evidence family (18th Congress Nov 2012; Eight-Point Regulation Dec 4, 2012; "tigers and flies" Jan 22, 2013; Bo Xilai trial; Zhou Yongkang investigation announced July 29, 2014); 2016–2018 supervision-reform evidence file (pilot plan Nov 2016; NPCSC pilot decision Dec 25, 2016; 19th Congress Oct 18, 2017; Supervision Law Mar 20, 2018; NSC unveiled Mar 23, 2018); GOV-056 administrative-litigation package (马怀德 "靠制度反腐").
Evidence grading: VERIFIED / PROBABLE / ATTRIBUTED per source, the section convention. The campaign's launch is documented in "The 2012–2014 Launch of the Xi-Era Anti-Corruption Campaign"; this dossier addresses the institutional question — what the campaign built, and whether it amounts to rules-based accountability.
Policy question
Since late 2012, mainland China has run the most sustained anticorruption drive in its post-1949 history — and rebuilt the institutions that conduct it. The question is whether the result is accountability under rules or discipline under command. The two look similar when targets fall; they differ in everything that matters afterward: who can investigate whom, what restrains the investigators, and whether the accused have rights against the process.
What was built
The launch phase (documented in the companion article): on December 4, 2012, the new Politburo adopted the Eight-Point Regulation （八项规定）, a frugality and work-style code; on January 22, 2013, Xi told discipline chiefs to strike "tigers and flies" （老虎苍蝇一起打） together; roving inspection teams （巡视） fanned out from mid-2013; Bo Xilai was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2013; in July 2014 the CCDI announced an investigation into retired security czar Zhou Yongkang — the first former Politburo Standing Committee member ever to face a formal graft inquiry (all VERIFIED from the evidence family).
The institutional phase remade the machinery. In November 2016 the CPC Central General Office issued the supervision-reform pilot plan for Beijing, Shanxi, and Zhejiang; on December 25, 2016, the NPCSC authorized the pilots (VERIFIED). At the 19th Party Congress (October 18, 2017), the reform was deepened: supervision commissions at all four levels, a Supervision Law, and liuzhi （留置） replacing the Party's "two regulations" （两规） (VERIFIED — Congress report). The constitutional amendment of March 11, 2018 added the supervision-commission section; Yang Xiaodu was elected the first National Supervisory Commission director on March 18; the Supervision Law was adopted March 20; the NSC was unveiled March 23, 2018 (VERIFIED — official sequence). The integration merged the Ministry of Supervision, the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, and the procuratorate's duty-crime functions into the commissions, co-located with the CCDI (VERIFIED — 2018 reform Plan text).
What the evidence shows
The new pipeline is investigate-then-prosecute: commissions investigate duty crimes and transfer cases to the procuratorate for review and prosecution (VERIFIED — Supervision Law Arts. 11, 45). Liuzhi is capped at three months, extendable once by up to three months (VERIFIED — Art. 43). SPP work reports record 27,000 duty-crime cases accepted from supervisory commissions in the year reported March 2025 and 30,500 in the year reported March 2026 — the pipeline is the standing mechanism (ATTRIBUTED — official SPP reports via state-media summaries).
The rights critique is contemporaneous and specific. Human Rights Watch (November 10, 2017, on the draft) called for abolishing liuzhi and investigating corruption through a rights-respecting justice system (VERIFIED). Amnesty International (March 2018, on passage) described a parallel Party-run system lacking outside checks, up to six months' incommunicado detention, no guaranteed lawyer access, and torture/forced-confession risks (VERIFIED). The UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (2019) recorded liuzhi as up-to-six-month detention outside judicial facilities without external appeal or counsel (VERIFIED as later analysis). A 2023 Cambridge peer-reviewed study reports most Chinese scholars favored lawyer participation in duty-crime investigation (ATTRIBUTED — later analysis).
The institutional-anticorruption position exists inside the system too: 马怀德's "靠制度反腐" (fight corruption through institutions) line, documented in the GOV-056 package, argues the remedy is institutional checks rather than campaign intensity (ATTRIBUTED).
FCM governing alternative
A Third Republic should keep the investigative capacity and replace the command logic:
- One law for investigators and investigated. Duty-crime investigation under criminal procedure, not a parallel track: counsel access from the first restriction of liberty (the Chen Guangzhong proposal of 2017 — ATTRIBUTED), judicial authorization for detention beyond 48 hours, exclusion of coerced statements.
- Separate the Party from the process. Investigation by a statutory body answerable to the legislature; Party discipline handles Party membership, not liberty.
- Publish the pipeline. Annual, case-level-disaggregated statistics on investigations opened, liuzhi-equivalent detentions imposed and their durations, transfers to prosecution, convictions, and acquittals — the SPP's 27,000/30,500 figures as a floor, not a ceiling, of disclosure.
- Independent review of closed cases. A standing review body with power to reopen cases on evidence of coercion, publishing its findings.
How to measure success
- Counsel-access rate in duty-crime investigations, published annually.
- Median and maximum detention-before-charge durations, published.
- Conviction/acquittal/reversal rates for duty-crime prosecutions.
- Number of cases reopened on coercion findings, with published reasons.
Sources
- Companion article: "The 2012–2014 Launch of the Xi-Era Anti-Corruption Campaign" (launch-phase evidence).
- 2016–2018 supervision-reform evidence file (pilot, law, NSC sequence; scholar debate positions 2016–2017).
- Supervision Law (2018) Arts. 3, 11, 34, 43, 45.
- Human Rights Watch, Nov 10, 2017 (draft critique); Amnesty International, Mar 2018; UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, 119th session (2019).
- GOV-056 package: administrative-litigation baseline; 马怀德 "靠制度反腐".
- Note: Supervision Law amended December 2024, effective June 1, 2025 (PROBABLE — Lexology practitioner commentary; official amendment text not verified in corpus).
Open questions this dossier will track
The December 2024 amendment's official text; counsel-access practice under the amended law; whether the "four forms" disciplinary statistics continue to be published.