China corruption could lead to Soviet-style collapse

BEIJING: China must step up its battle against corruption in order to safeguard against a Soviet-style collapse, the country’s second most senior graft buster said in an editorial on Wednesday.

Yang Xiaodu, the deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, who was promoted to the ruling Communist Party’s 25-strong Politburo last month, said failure would risk the "red country changing colour".

In unusually direct and strongly worded criticism of previous administrations, Yang said "in a previous period", corruption had been allowed to fester to such an extent that the party’s leadership had weakened, with supervision soft, and ideology apathetic.

"It had developed to the point where if not rectified, the country could change colour," Yang wrote in the official People’s Daily. "The future fate of the party and the country’s people could follow the same old road to ruin as the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.