China’s new leader Xi Jinping has warned officials that they must fight corruption or risk ruining the country, strong words that come after a series of corruption investigations targeted high-level leaders in recent years. Xi told the new 25-member Politburo that the party must be vigilant against graft, noting that corruption in other countries in recent years had prompted major social unrest and the collapse of governments, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. “The large number of facts tells us that if the problem of corruption becomes increasingly severe, it will lead to the ruin of the party and the country,” Xi said. In his remarks, Xi dwelled at length on the importance of the party’s theoretical foundations in Marxism, Leninism and the ideas espoused by his predecessors, and said leaders had to be mindful of the practical realities of running the country and reconnecting with the population. “In recent years, within our party there have been serious discipline violations, the nature of which has been very bad, with a terrible political impact, causing much alarm,” said Xi, who took over as China’s Communist Party leader last Thursday.
