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Leadership: CCDI Criticized Several Prime Ministers in Chinese History

Recently, Chinese-language media outside China reported heavily on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) in-fighting between Xi Jinping and an anti-Xi group. Chinascope is unable to verify some of the claims but will report on these happenings.

The CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) recently published two articles mentioning some prime ministers in China’s history. The CCP has a tradition of hinting about today’s politics using historic stories.

On June 1, The China Discipline Inspection and Monitoring Magazine, a semi-monthly publication by the CCDI, published an article titled “Abandoning Exquisite Egoism.” It criticized two prime ministers: Li Si (李斯) of the Qin Dynasty and Li Linfu (李林甫) of the Tang Dynasty, calling them out for using their skillful acting and carefully created justifications cleverly to conceal their selfish and greedy nature.

On June 7, the CCDI official website published an article titled, “Knowing How To Stop In Front of Your Own Desires.” It asked officials “always to cultivate the virtue of governance, always to think about the harm of greed, always to be disciplined, and always to give up improper ambitions.” It praised two prime ministers Xiao He (萧何) of Han Dynasty and Li Hang (李沆) of Song Dynasty and criticized two prime ministers Yan Song (严嵩) of Ming Dynasty and He Shen (和珅) of Qing Dynasty.

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Sources:
1. The China Discipline Inspection and Monitoring Magazine, June 1, 2022
http://zgjjjc.ccdi.gov.cn/bqml/bqxx/202206/t20220601_196499.html
2. CCDI official website, June 7, 2022
https://www.ccdi.gov.cn/pln/202206/t20220607_197538.html