Xi Jinping tightens grip on China’s powerful domestic security forces, with call from senior ally to “turn the blade inwards."
This is an important campaign. But a few thoughts, based on a piece coming out in 2 weeks with China Leadership Monitor. 1/n https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-tightens-grip-on-domestic-security-forces-in-first-broad-purge-11597773887

First, this campaign kicks off as another winds down. The Saohei campaign (扫黑除恶专项斗争) has targeted the polit-legal apparatus too by trying to excise "protection umbrellas" that law enforcement provide to local criminal orgs. The new campaign continues that focus. 2/

The phrase "scrape the poison from the bone" (刮骨疗毒) was also the theme for anti-corruption purges in the military (as @jmulvenon has noted). So again, some parallels. 3/

Also, Xi Jinping has *already* replaced the entire leadership of the political-legal apparatus at this point! So my take is that the campaign is doing something kind of different: pushing his authority downwards throughout the system now that new team in place at top. 4/

Protection umbrellas matter because they corrupt the political-legal apparatus *from below*. So in words of CCP, they fuse anti-corruption with strengthening Party control over grassroots governance. It's inherently political, about consolidating party's "ruling foundation." 5/

This might be an intense period of purging, but my data finds over 120 (!) provincial-level officials (or higher) purged under Saohei/anti-corruption already. It's important not to portray this as "the first purge," because of the extent of purging that's already taken place. 6/

The Supreme Ppl's Procuratorate work report released in May 2020 cited 1345 prosecutions for protection umbrellas in Saohei's second year. That does *not* include party discipline, which increases numbers more. 7/

So this education/rectification campaign is important, because it's coming *after all these 3-year efforts.* Suggests that the previous, already intense efforts, weren't perceived by leaders as entirely successful. That's telling. 7/

Important figure here is Chen Yixin, general secretary of Polit-Legal Commission (CPLC). He's close to Xi, and is directing the new campaign - not Guo Shengkun, the formal head of the CPLC, who's less close to Xi. 8/

I read this as a *continued* push by Xi Jinping to remake China’s coercive apparatus into a force entirely politically responsive to his direction. First term concentrated on PLA/domestic security leadership. Now he's moving focus downward to lower-level consolidation. 9/

Saohei was launched on heels of 19th Party Congress; this one-year intensified rectification/education campaign looks to me like trying to ensure consolidation is finished before the 20th PC in early 2022 (where Xi would take relatively unprecedented 3rd term). 10/

For more detail (& coherence) on this topic, watch for the China Leadership Monitor analysis coming out on September 1. Feedback & debate welcome!
(Thx to @lingli_vienna @SPCmonitor @jmulvenon @szscoggins @ByChunHan @ChuBailiang, whose work I've learned a lot from). /11 fin