Xi Jinping is immensely powerful. Why can’t he stamp out corruption?

After securing an unprecedented third term as Communist Party chief in October 2022, Mr Xi Jinping led senior officials on a pilgrimage to the party’s “red holy city”. His choice of destination was Yan’an in north-western China, where Mao Zedong’s guerrillas were once based. It was a clue to Mr Xi’s priorities for the years ahead. He told his entourage that Yan’an was where the party had forged its fighting spirit and committed itself to the “correct political direction”.

But Yan’an’s legacy is also dark. There in the early 1940s, encircled by Japanese and nationalist forces, Mao launched the party’s first great “rectification” campaign, crushing rivals and tightening his grip on power. What began with compulsory study of Mao’s teachings soon devolved into a paranoid purge: of the 40,000 revolutionaries present, 15,000 were branded traitors. Torture was common. Many were executed or driven to suicide.