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Ma Xingrui’s rise inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took 38 years. His fall took about six months. After he disappeared from public view last November, an investigation into Ma was formally announced on April 3, and three months later he was dismissed from the party with a long list of charges. For a high-flying Politburo member whose career spanned the defense and aerospace establishment, Guangdong, and Xinjiang, the case was handled with remarkable speed.

When an ordinary official becomes corrupt, the problem can be attributed to personal character. But when an official who has passed through layer after layer of screening, been entrusted with one of the country’s most politically sensitive regions, and been elevated to the Politburo spends years operating an extensive family corruption network, the failure lies not only with the individual. It lies with the systems used to identify, promote, and supervise senior officials.

Ma Xingrui’s rise inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took 38 years. His fall took about six months. After he disappeared from public view last November, an investigation into Ma was formally announced on April 3, and three months later he was dismissed from the party with a long list of charges. For a high-flying Politburo member whose career spanned the defense and aerospace establishment, Guangdong, and Xinjiang, the case was handled with remarkable speed.

When an ordinary official becomes corrupt, the problem can be attributed to personal character. But when an official who has passed through layer after layer of screening, been entrusted with one of the country’s most politically sensitive regions, and been elevated to the Politburo spends years operating an extensive family corruption network, the failure lies not only with the individual. It lies with the systems used to identify, promote, and supervise senior officials.

Reading dismissal notices depends on a careful understanding of the fixed phrases used and what it means to deviate from them. Ma’s notice provides us with a couple of interesting clues as to why he fell. The first is the charge that Ma “engaged extensively in family-based corruption.” In previous cases involving fallen senior officials, disciplinary notices often stated that they had failed to discipline or educate their spouses and children or had allowed relatives to profit from........

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