China has built or expanded more than 200 specialized detention facilities nationwide to interrogate suspects ensnared in Xi Jinping’s widening anti-corruption drive, a CNN investigation has found, as the Chinese leader extends his crackdown beyond the ruling Communist Party to a vast swath of public sectors.
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has launched a sweeping campaign against graft and disloyalty, taking down corrupt officials as well as political rivals at an unprecedented speed and scale as he consolidated control over the party and the military.
Now well into his third term, the supreme leader has turned his relentless campaign into a permanent and institutionalized feature of his open-ended rule.
And increasingly, some of the most fearsome tools he has wielded to keep officials in line are being used against a much broader section of society, from private entrepreneurs to school and hospital administrators – regardless of whether they are members of the 99-million-strong party.
The expanded detention regime, named “liuzhi,” or “retention in custody,” comes with facilities with padded surfaces and round-the-clock guards in every cell, where detainees can be held for up to six months without ever seeing a lawyer or family members.
It’s an extension of a system long used by the party to exert control and instill fear among its members.
For decades, the party’s disciplinary arm, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), had run a secretive, extralegal detention system to interrogate Communist Party cadres suspected of corruption and other misdeeds.
Officials under investigation were disappeared into party compounds, hotels or other covert locations for months at a time, with no access to legal counsel or family visits.
In 2018, amid growing criticism over widespread abuse, torture and forced confession, Xi scrapped the controversial practice known as “shuanggui,” or “double designation” – a nod to the party’s power to summon members for investigation at a designated time and place.
