What is the incentive behind the mobility of Chinese cadres? Previous political economy literatures have much debate on this question, either emphasizing the effect of economic performance or political connection on cadres’ promotion. Recent political dynamics of China gives us an opportunity to examine this question in another perspective. The anti-corruption movement since Xi Jinping came into power, which disciplined more than one thousand cadres ranking above middle level, allows researcher to focus on not only cadres’ promotion, but also their conviction under the name of being corrupt. This paper hypothesize that the extensive crackdown on corrupt officials is not just law enforcement. It also aims at sacking cadres who belong to the rival factions of the new dominant leader. Specifically, after the power succession around 2012, cadres who have factional ties with the rival of the new dominant leaders face more risk of being disciplined, while cadres having factional ties with the new dominant leaders are less likely to be disciplined. To demonstrate this argument, first, a model of two-stage official turnover around and after 2012 is proposed, in which the extensive promotion as the result of bargain and compromise was then reshuffled by a new round of adjustment, especially the anti-corruption movement. Second, an original dataset covering the information of all middle-level and high-level officials who was disciplined during the past 36 months is employed to show how these officials were connected with each other, in terms of shared birthplace, school, and working unit. Third, for the causal inference, another dataset of all municipal leaders (party secretaries and mayors) who took the office around the power succession period is employed. Their career shifts during and after the power succession period, including both promotion and conviction, are regressed on their factional ties with their superior provincial leaders, as well as the factional ties with the disciplined high-ranking cadres during Xi’s crackdown. In the regressions, various kinds of performance and individual characteristics are controlled, and matching method is used to address selection bias. By investigating the informal politics behind the recent power succession, the finding has implications for the theoretical debate on China’s authoritarian resilience, which may challenge the argument that China’s authoritarianism is evolving into a norm-bound and meritocratic system.
