Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao warned that corruption is sapping the party's authority and called for a crackdown in the wake of scandals that have exposed corrosive official abuses as market reform deepens.
Hu told a meeting in Beijing marking the 85th anniversary of the Communist Party's founding that despite a long campaign to root out corruption, official abuse remained widespread. "In some spheres, corruption remains quite serious," Hu said in a speech broadcast live on Chinese television on Friday. "There are continued cases of leading officials abusing power for private gain, engaging in graft and bending the law and falling into corruption and dissolution." Hu's speech comes after a string of scandals highlighted misdeeds among senior officials, including the military.
On Thursday, China announced it had sacked a top naval officer, Wang Shouye, for economic abuses and also detained a vice governor of the eastern province of Anhui accused of taking bribes. Earlier this month, Beijing Vice Mayor Liu Zhihua was sacked, accused of corruption and dissolute behaviour.
Hu said such abuses threatened the party's control. "If a ruling party cannot maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the people, if it loses the people's support, it will lose its vitality," he said.