Anti-graft fight called popular with public, but major challenges lie ahead

There is no room for cliques and factions within the Communist Party of China, top leaders said on Monday as they pledged to persist in the fight against corruption.

The Party has used determination and heavy measures in the past year to push forward the crackdown on corruption and the building of clean governance, according to a statement issued after a meeting of highest-ranking officials that was presided over by President Xi Jinping. This has already achieved much and won approval from the public, the statement said.

Though once-rampant corruption and other misconduct by officials have been curbed, the entire Party must keep a sober mind and realize that the anti-graft battle still faces grave challenges, the statement added.

"The Party's disciplines must be complied with. The Party has never allowed cliques and factions within it," it said. "In addition, those who still have a bad work style and extravagant deeds will be given severe punishment, and their leaders will also be held accountable."

It urged the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China's top anti-graft watchdog, to deepen the reform on anti-corruption mechanisms and to launch more in-house inspections of local governments and State-owned enterprises.

The condemnation of cliques and factions can be read as the latest warning that officials should not follow in the steps of Zhou Yongkang, Xu Caihou and Ling Jihua, all once-influential political figures who had enormous power.

Zhou, the former head of law enforcement agencies, was reported to have formed several patronage networks within the fields he had taken charge of. Many officials from local governments and central departments, as well as State-owned enterprises, have been investigated in connection with Zhou's case, Chinese media said.

Zhou has been expelled from the Party and placed under investigation.

Xu, a retired general and former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, is also said to have set up factions within the People's Liberation Army. A host of senior officers of the PLA are now under internal probe for allegedly being involved in Xu's case.

As a powerful officials in the PLA, Xu was found to have taken advantage of his position to assist with the promotion of others, accepting bribes, and to have sought profits for others in exchange for bribes, according to military investigators.

PLA prosecutors wrapped up the investigation into Xu and began the filing process in late October. He is the highest-level PLA officer to be investigated and charged in more than 30 years.

Chinese media claimed that Ling, a senior Party official and national political adviser who became the latest one to have fallen, established a secretive network with other high-ranking officials and business magnates who are from his home province of Shanxi to expand his influence.