China’s Xi tells party ‘power is granted by people’ amid corruption crackdown

President Xi Jinping has called for a “clear, transparent and traceable” mechanism to regulate the exercise of power in China’s anti-corruption drive and boost supervision by the people and the media to better rein in disciplinary and legal violations.

Xi made the remarks while presiding over a group study session of the 24-seat decision-making Politburo in Beijing on Monday, a day before the 104th anniversary of the party’s founding, according to Xinhua.

Xi spoke on enforcing party discipline with his eight-point austerity rules and more comprehensive supervision over the exercise of power.

“To fight against corruption, [we must] regulate the exercise of power,” Xi said, according to the state news agency.

“[We must] improve the institutional mechanism to unify the authorisation, exercise and control of power, and make it clear, transparent and traceable. [We should] focus on finding loopholes in the exercise of power and address the system’s shortcomings,” he added, urging party members and cadres to always bear in mind that “all power is granted by the people”, and to respect the people, the party, the law and discipline.

The remarks from China’s leader came as the Communist Party gave a fresh push to its decade-long austerity campaign to curb excessive spending on official events and abuse of public funds for recreational purposes such as dining.

This year, millions of Chinese officials are attending an education campaign focused on implementing Xi’s eight-point austerity rules to improve the party’s conduct, an issue Beijing believes is key to its public image and legitimacy to rule.

  

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