According to informed sources within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system who disclosed to Epoch Times, internal power struggles and purges within the CCP reached unprecedented intensity in 2025. The latest internal reports indicate that the number of corruption cases uncovered last year reached a historical high. The confirmed amount of illicit gains from corruption, bribery, buying and selling official positions, and illegal income within the party alone soared to 800 billion yuan, with over 300 billion yuan of illicit funds still being recovered, breaking the 1 trillion yuan mark.
Close to an insider within the CCP system, Li Yu (pseudonym) revealed to our reporter that since last year, the CCP has initiated a highly targeted “secondary retirement review” for retired officials. This crackdown on “old tigers” has not only unearthed long-standing issues but also exposed the astonishing hidden wealth behind the group of retired officials, including vast amounts of undisclosed real estate and substantial overseas underground deposits.
Li Yu also mentioned that what’s even more shocking is the chain reaction of “pulling out radishes to bring out mud” during the review process: “Investigations into corrupt officials currently in power indirectly implicated more ‘hidden fishes’ than those directly implicated, with the latter group comprising over 60% more individuals. Many of these officials’ properties are held by family and friends, with significant secret deposits in banks in Hong Kong, the UK, and Australia.”
According to official CCP data and internal reports, the structure of corruption in 2025 exhibited distinct hierarchical features. Mr. Zhao, a Chinese political observer, explained to reporters that there are approximately 4,500 officials at the bureau-level and above, corresponding to a fund size of around 225 billion yuan. The average amount per case is as high as 50 million yuan, indicating a clear concentration of resources towards higher levels. Officials at the division-level and below amount to around 20,000 individuals, corresponding to about 100 billion yuan. This level has the highest proportion of individuals, forming the majority of cases, with an average corruption amount per person of approximately 5 million yuan.
Mr. Zhao pointed out that the total corruption by these two categories of officials in office amounts to around 325 billion yuan, constituting the main body of cash flows that were “verified and confiscated” last year. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. When adding over 300 billion yuan of hidden overseas funds recovered from retired officials, as well as the ongoing investigations into tens of billions yuan of unsettled funds in financial, military-industrial, and other giant state-owned enterprises, it forms the staggering amount nearing “trillion yuan” scale as reported internally.
Mr. Zhao commented, “This is not simply corruption; it is fundamentally an institutionalized plundering movement, a norm of ‘power realization’ within the CCP system. Every penny extracted is the utmost exploitation of the people, serving as the underground fuel for maintaining ‘political loyalty’ within this system. Without dismantling the old web of corruption, new power brokers cannot divvy up the spoils.”
A long-time scholar of the Chinese political system, Han Qing (pseudonym), shared with reporters, “From this precise match between power and money, you can see that corruption has long been deeply intertwined with the operational mechanisms of the CCP. In a system of absolute power monopoly, opaque resource allocation, and supervision relying entirely on ‘fathers investigating their sons’, corruption is a ‘standard plug-in’ highly efficiently produced within this abnormal system. The so-called anti-corruption efforts are merely mafia-style turf reallocations during the changing of powers.”
This assessment was also echoed in specific cases. On March 25, the Intermediate People’s Court in Dalian sentenced the former Chairman of the China Aviation Industry Group, Tan Ruisong, in a case involving bribery totaling 613 million yuan, along with embezzlement of nearly 90 million yuan and insider trading and information leakage. The related details show that within the power structures of military-industrial systems and large state-owned enterprises, where resources are concentrated and approval chains are sealed, officials holding key positions can continuously exploit huge benefits over extended periods.
A military expert, Mr. Chen, told reporters, “Military-industrial enterprises are involved in major projects with highly concentrated funds and approval authority. Once lacking external supervision, power can easily transform into long-term, covert profit channels. The Tan Ruisong case illustrates that corruption is not a short-term action but an accumulated result within institutional spaces.”
He indicated that when power and resources circulate within the system devoid of external oversight, corruption not only becomes difficult to detect promptly but could also perpetuate among different positions, gradually giving the system characteristics of “self-replicating corruption.”