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Xi Jinping’s Tiger Hunt: Anti-corruption Campaign or Factional Purge?
Abstract: The anti-corruption drive launched by General Secretary Xi Jinping in late 2012, early 2013 has been criticized as a political purge designed to weed out Xi’s would-be rivals within the communist party leadership rather than a genuine attack of corruption. In this article, I use the historical precedent of the purges launched in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin to define what constitutes a purge and what distinguishes a purge from a political witch hunt. I then examine Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, arguing that while a small part of the campaign may be a politically motivated attack on his rivals, the primary focus of the drive has been against the much larger problem of corruption within the party, state, and business sector.
 
Current Issue
MSC cover 2021-issue2
ISSN 2160-0295 (Print)
ISSN 2160-0317 (Online)