Corruption cases against village and town officials in China have soared in 2024, as a graft crackdown deepens in the world’s second-largest economy.
The number of cases against the directors of village committees, which run China’s smallest administrative areas, grew year on year by 31,000 – or 67.4 per cent – to 77,000 in the first nine months of 2024, according to official figures.
There were also a lot more graft cases involving township officials, which grew by 24,000 – or 36.9 per cent – to 89,000 between January and September, compared with the same period in 2023.
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For the first nine months of 2024, China logged 642,000 corruption cases, higher than the 626,000 for the whole of 2023. The increase is seen at all five levels of the country’s administrative areas, which also include county, prefecture and province.
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Fraudulent claims and embezzlement were the most common forms of corruption in villages in China, according to an analysis by Hunan University of 567 graft cases between 2015 and 2020 made public by the central authorities.
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Experts have told local media that corruption in villages in China has been hard to root out due to weak oversight, a lack of staff trained in accounting and opaque financial disclosures.