Using data-science to evaluate whether Xi Jinping's anti-corruption sweeps were really about consolidating power

China-watchers observed the rise-and-rise of Chinese premier Xi Jinping with caution and sometimes alarm, but also held out some hope that despite his authoritarian tendencies and thin skin, Xi was genuinely committed to rooting out the rampant corruption that has plagued the country since its rapid industrialization under Deng Xiaoping: the creation of an untouchable elite and a hereditary princeling class immune to civil justice; looting by respected members of the business community; and a sense that the looters are exfiltrating their money, bypassing currency controls, and stashing the booty in apartments overseas, fueling both the Bitcoin and real-estate bubbles worldwide.

Xi, after all, has pretty impeccable revolutionary credentials, having marched with Mao and then serving seven years in a forced-labor camp during the Cultural Revolution, sleeping on a bed of bricks in a cave, shitting in a bucket, and living on thin rice-gruel.

But when Xi secured a second term and embarked on a purge of "corrupt" elements, many worried that he'd learned the wrong lessons from the Cultural Revolution, and had seized on the pretense of corruption to clear the political ranks of his challengers. The fact that an early arrest included Bo Xilai, the charismatic (and very, very corrupt) official seen as a potential successor to Xi didn't assuage the fears -- and then when Xi delighted President Trump by effectively declaring himself Chinese President For Life, people really started to worry.

Were they right to worry?

A new paper called Personal Ties, Meritocracy, and China's Anti-Corruptionby USF economist Peter Lorentzen and NUS political scientist Xi Lu (presented at the University of Chicago's East Asia Workshop on Politics, Economy and Society) takes a fascinating, data-driven approach to answering this question. Read the rest