77000 current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors have been registered. "This is the data released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission recently when reporting on the supervision, inspection, review and investigation of the national disciplinary inspection and supervision organs from January to September this year. It is worth noting that according to data released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, 61000 current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors were registered last year. Experts interviewed by reporters analyzed that the direction of punishing the "fly, greed, ant, and corruption" around the masses is at the grassroots level, with a focus on key minorities such as village party branch secretaries and village committee directors. The data shows that the disciplinary inspection and supervision organs have adhered to the principle of promoting integrity, discipline and anti-corruption at the grassroots level, maintaining a high-pressure situation of "punishment", and achieving significant results in solving prominent problems strongly reflected by the masses. The interviewed experts pointed out that from the perspective of disciplinary inspection and supervision work, it is urgent to improve the grassroots supervision system, optimize the establishment of grassroots disciplinary inspection and supervision institutions, and suggest setting up specialized village level disciplinary inspection and supervision institutions, implementing integrated supervision, and extending the supervision force to the "last mile" to solve key minority corruption problems at the village level. Resolutely rectify "micro corruption" On November 1st, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission released information that the Shanxi Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervisory Commission publicly exposed six typical cases of unhealthy practices and corruption among the masses. Feng Kui, the former head of the Yuchengzhuang Village Committee in Weiyuan Town, Youyu County, Shanxi Province, has been involved in issues such as favoritism and fraudulent use of poverty alleviation funds. According to the report, from 2014 to 2024, Feng Kui took advantage of his position and illegally declared his relatives as registered impoverished households, defrauding more than 200000 yuan of poverty alleviation funds; Without the collective evaluation of the villagers, Ma declared his friend as a rural subsistence allowance household, resulting in Ma illegally enjoying the rural subsistence allowance treatment. In September of this year, Feng Kui was expelled from the party and his suspected criminal activities were transferred to the procuratorial organs for legal examination and prosecution. Feng Kui is just a microcosm of the disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies investigating and punishing corruption issues among current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors this year. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reported that from January to September this year, a total of 642000 disciplinary inspection and supervision organs across the country filed cases, including 58 provincial-level cadres, 3263 department level cadres, 26000 county-level cadres, and 89000 township level cadres; 77000 current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors have been registered. It is worth noting that in July 2023, when the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reported on the supervision, inspection, review and investigation of the national discipline inspection and supervision organs in the first half of 2023, the number of registered cases was subdivided into current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors. Peng Xinlin, director of the Beijing Clean Governance and Rule of Law Collaborative Innovation Base, believes that resolutely rectifying "micro corruption" around the masses is a key task of disciplinary inspection and supervision work, while punishing "fly, greed, ant, and corruption" around the masses is aimed at the grassroots level, with a focus on key few such as village party branch secretaries and village committee directors. In Peng Xinlin's view, the reported data shows that the disciplinary inspection and supervision organs adhere to the principle of promoting integrity, discipline and anti-corruption at the grassroots level, maintain a high-pressure situation of "punishment", and focus on investigating and punishing the problem of "fly, corruption and ant" around the masses, achieving significant results. It also highlights that rectifying corruption around the masses has become a distinctive feature of promoting integrity, discipline and anti-corruption on the new journey. Zhuang Deshui, Deputy Director of the Public Policy Research Center at Peking University, believes that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission's notification of detailed data on current or former village party branch secretaries and village committee directors who have filed cases is of great significance. He analyzed that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to extend the anti-corruption struggle to the grassroots and to the people, punish corruption and bribery, and give the people a greater sense of gain. This means that this work has become a key area in the fight against corruption. The village party branch secretary and village committee director are the most grassroots cadres in rural areas and also the key targets of anti-corruption struggle. From the corruption cases of village party branch secretaries and village committee directors investigated in recent years, it can be seen that their corruption problems directly occur around the masses, seriously affecting their sense of gain, happiness, and security. In Zhuang Deshui's view, the release of the above data not only demonstrates the significant achievements of grassroots anti-corruption, but also makes the masses feel that comprehensive strict governance of the Party is around them, boosting their confidence in anti-corruption. From 2016 to 2019, Fan Zhenmao, the former party branch secretary of Huatuan Village, Xiahan Village, Hunyuan County, Shanxi Province, directly harmed the interests of the masses. He took advantage of his position and colluded with others to sign false land acquisition agreements, engineering contracts, and other means, defrauding more than 530000 yuan in land acquisition compensation and taking over 200000 yuan of it as his own. In September this year, Fan Zhenmao was expelled from the party and was transferred to the procuratorial organs for legal examination and prosecution on suspicion of committing crimes. In 2019, Zheng Derong, former party branch secretary and village committee director of Qunying Village, Qunying Township, Lingshui County, Hainan Province, took advantage of his position to assist the township government in purchasing water hyacinth salvage boats. He colluded with others to fraudulently obtain national financial funds and privately split the amount with others by signing false contracts, inflating the purchase price, and other means. In May of this year, Zheng Derong was expelled from the party and his related disciplinary and illegal gains were confiscated. From 2014 to 2024, Tian Shouqin, former Secretary of the Party General Branch and Director of the Village Committee in Chaigang Village, Liuzhen Town, Quanjiao County, Anhui Province, helped multiple relatives who did not meet or no longer met the conditions for subsistence allowance to illegally receive subsistence allowances by concealing their family's economic ability. In July of this year, Tian Shouqin was dismissed from her party position and ordered to resign from her position as village committee director. In recent times, many places have reported typical cases of unhealthy practices and corruption around the masses, including multiple cases of corruption among village party branch secretaries and village committee directors. Regarding this, Peng Xinlin analyzed that through sorting, it can be seen that the main manifestations of corruption in village party branch secretaries and village committee directors include improper practices and corruption issues that directly harm the interests of the masses, such as demanding bribes, overestimating, falsely reporting and claiming, embezzlement, interception and misappropriation, and favoritism towards relatives and friends. He believes that the corruption of the village party branch secretary and village committee director, which is the most typical "fly, greed, and ant corruption" around the masses, is related to the most concerned, direct, and practical interests of the masses. This type of grassroots corruption directly affects the sense of gain, happiness, and security of the masses, and damages the foundation of the Party's governance and the long-term stability of the country. In Zhuang Deshui's view, there are many types of corruption among village party branch secretaries and village committee directors, the most typical of which are embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds, such as taking advantage of their positions to embezzle and misappropriate village collective public funds. The reason is that the village level supervision and restraint system is not yet sound or has a certain lag, resulting in the loss of control over the use and management of village collective funds. He believes that intercepting false claims is also a major type of corruption problem. With the increase of national financial transfer payments and the increase of national financial subsidies for farmers, some village party branch secretaries and village committee directors have embezzled, withheld or falsely claimed poverty alleviation funds, immigration funds, disaster relief funds, dilapidated house renovation subsidies, land acquisition compensation funds, etc. allocated by the state, infringing on the interests of the masses. The issue of rent-seeking and corruption is also worthy of attention. Especially when it comes to village level engineering contracting and resource allocation, the village party branch secretary and village committee director use their power to seek personal gain for themselves, their relatives, and friends, and compete with the people for profits Zhuang Deshui said. He pointed out that behind the corruption issues of village party branch secretaries and village committee directors, there is often a shadow of unhealthy practices, that is, the integration of wind and corruption. These cadres usually engage in the "four winds" problem with a lucky mentality, eroding or even undermining the Party's overall leadership over rural grassroots work. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection held in January 2023 proposed to resolutely punish corruption around the masses. Subsequently, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued the "Opinions on Carrying out Special Rectification of Improper Practices and Corruption in the Field of Rural Revitalization", requiring discipline inspection and supervision organs at all levels to resolutely punish all corrupt behaviors that harm the interests of the masses, and win the trust and support of the masses with new achievements in promoting integrity and discipline. The interviewed experts provided suggestions on how to specifically address the corruption issues of village party branch secretaries and village committee directors. Peng Xinlin believes that it is necessary to establish and improve a comprehensive prevention and control mechanism that combines punishment, deterrence, institutional constraints, and awareness raising, based on the manifestations, characteristics, and evolutionary trends of corruption among village leaders (i.e. the "fly, greed, and ant corruption" around the masses), and continuously eradicate the soil and conditions that breed such corruption. In his view, promoting the extension of comprehensive strict governance of the Party to the grassroots level, coordinating supervision forces, strengthening the integration of disciplinary inspection and supervision, inspection, audit supervision, etc., fully leveraging the role of township discipline inspection commissions as "outposts", carrying out "embedded" supervision of important aspects such as village affairs decision-making and resource asset management, and tracking and promoting standardized and open management of village affairs. At the same time, in response to the problems exposed in the investigation and handling of the "fly corruption and ant corruption" case, we will find the reasons from the institutional mechanism, promote the establishment of rules and regulations, plug loopholes, and combine "immediate reform" with "long-term establishment" to prevent and reduce the occurrence of "fly corruption and ant corruption" among village leaders from the source. Zhuang Deshui believes that according to the provisions of the Supervision Law, the supervisory organs have the right to supervise "personnel engaged in management in grassroots mass autonomous organizations". This means that village party branch secretaries and village committee directors are included in the supervision targets, providing a "sharp sword" for solving grassroots corruption problems. He called for promoting the improvement of the grassroots supervision system, which can be established by the supervisory organs at the village level as specialized supervisory agencies stationed at the higher-level supervisory organs to conduct disciplinary inspection and supervision of village party branch secretaries, village committee directors, etc. This setting can effectively solve the problem of lax or inadequate supervision of grassroots personnel, and is also conducive to using supervisory methods to timely investigate and deter their corrupt behavior, opening up the "last mile" of supervision, and extending the comprehensive strict governance of the party to the grassroots. Zhuang Deshui also reminded that to solve the problem of grassroots corruption at its root, in addition to improving the supervision mechanism, it is also necessary to improve the system and mechanism of grassroots governance, integrate grassroots anti-corruption work into the grassroots governance system for comprehensive consideration, stimulate grassroots innovation vitality and governance motivation, and solve their own governance problems. (New Society)