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Guarding the Great Wall: Party Groups’ Disciplinary Mandate Regulations, Unveiled
Anushka Saxena
On June 5, 2025, the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee revealed the full text of the ‘Regulations on the Procedures for Party Groups’ Deliberation and Decision Making on Sanctions for Party Members’ (党组讨论和决定党员处分事项工作程序规定). The Regulations were first approved by the Central Committee on November 29, 2018, and issued by the General Office on the same day. Later, they were revised by the Central Committee on May 26, 2025, issued by the General Office on the same day, and unveiled only recently.
The Regulations discuss in detail the powers of a ‘Party Group’ (党组) in disciplining the party cadres under the management of the local organs to which they are attached, and deciding punishments and sanctions in case investigation leads to conclusive proof that such cadres have deviated from set party codes and norms of discipline, anti-corruption, and political loyalty. The Regulation text is complex, detailing niche roles for multiple stakeholders, and I hope to break the provisions down in this edition.
DISCLAIMER: In the absence of an official English translation for these new Regulations, I have relied on previous rules/ regulations, translations and LLMs to get the whole picture. I look forward to being wrong – do let me know in the comments section of this edition.
Difference between a Party Group (党组) and a Party Committee (党委)
Party Groups are established to strengthen the CPC’s leadership over all aspects of work within a relevant organ, ensure implementation of the CPC’s party line, principles, and policies, and coordinate various tasks under the unified leadership of the CPC. Therefore, unlike Party Committees, Party Groups do not carry out general grassroots Party functions such as recruiting new Party members, deciding or approving disciplinary actions, electing delegates to Party congresses, or convening their own Party congresses or membership meetings.
To understand where and how Party Groups are established, one can refer to the provisions of Articles 5-8 of the ‘Regulations on the Work of Party Groups of the Communist Party of China’ (中国共产党党组工作条例). The main idea is, that in the leadership organs of certain relevant bodies and institutions, if there are three or more Party members in leadership positions, a Party Group may be established upon approval. These “relevant bodies and institutions” include:
Central and Local state institutions (such as the State Council and the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in the former category and people’s governments at the provincial, county or township levels in the latter category),
Mass/ People’s organisations (such as trade unions, the Communist Youth League, Taiwan Compatriots Federation),
economic organisations (such as State-owned enterprises like China National Petroleum Corporation),
cultural organizations (such as the Chinese Writers Association and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles), and
social organizations (such as People’s Political Consultative Conferences at all levels).
For military organs (the PLA and the People’s Armed Police), public security, state security ministries, judicial administrative organs, emergency management agencies, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, customs, financial regulatory agencies, and diplomatic missions abroad, Party committees rather than Party Groups are established, despite these being government entities.
In general, the establishment of a Party Group shall be approved by the Central Committee of the CPC or the Party committee at the corresponding level. Party Groups themselves are not authorized to approve the establishment of other Party Groups. But if in some organisations that have already established a Party Group, due to sectoral or system-wide management needs, it is truly necessary to establish sub-Party Groups in subordinate units, the Party Group must report to the organisational department of the Party committee at the corresponding level for approval.
There are a few other vital stakeholders who must be known to fully understand the distribution of responsibilities in the new regulations.
Stationed discipline inspection and supervision agencies (派驻机构): Under the centralised and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) dispatch discipline inspection and supervision agencies to central-level Party and state organs and other organisations, which become resident or stationed alongside the leaders of that organ. Similarly, local commissions for discipline inspection and supervision at all levels dispatch such agencies to Party and state organs and other organisations at the same administrative level, which then become resident alongside the leading group at that organ. Stationed agencies are integral parts of the dispatching authority, and maintain a relationship of supervision and being supervised with the entities under which they are stationed. Their nature, mandate and roles are envisioned in the ‘Rules on the Work of Discipline Inspection and Supervision Agencies Dispatched within Institutions’.
Dispatched Discipline Inspection and Supervision Working Committees (纪委监委派出机构): Supervisory bodies dispatched to Party work committees or administrative regions under their jurisdiction are classified as, well, dispatched. Dispatched institutions are larger in number and have temporary assignments across regions, and can be dispatched by local governments’ supervisory commissions. They work jointly with the stationed institutions to assess grassroots discipline among cadres, and their work can be understood from a reading of Articles 12 and 13 of the PRC Supervision Law, which respectively set out the institutional setup, leadership structure, and authority of stationed and dispatched supervision bodies and commissioners.
An example from a 2018 report on how the Guangdong Province has mobilised this system, gives some clarity on the roles:
In May 2018, the Office of the Guangdong Provincial Leading Group for Deepening the Pilot Reform of the Supervision System, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Supervision Law and local realities, formulated and issued the ‘Opinions on Clarifying the Supervisory Authority of Stationed Discipline Inspection and Supervision Groups and Advancing Supervisory Functions to the Grassroots (Trial)’ (关于明确派驻纪检监察组监察权限和推动监察职能向基层延伸的意见).
According to the Opinions, supervisory bodies stationed in Party and state organs at the same level are referred to as stationed supervisory groups (which share offices with discipline inspection groups). For example, the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision has stationed 34 such groups in 34 provincial-level Party and government units, such as the General Office of the Provincial Party Committee and the General Office of the Provincial Government.
In contrast, supervisory bodies dispatched to Party work committees or administrative regions under their jurisdiction are classified as dispatched. Dispatched bodies are divided into dispatched supervisory groups and supervisory commissioner offices. For instance, the Provincial Supervisory Commission has dispatched a supervisory group to the Provincial Party Work Committee (co-located with the Discipline Inspection Committee of provincial departments). At present, Guangdong’s county- and district-level supervisory commissions have dispatched a total of 982 supervisory groups to towns and subdistricts, co-located with their local discipline inspection offices. Additionally, supervisory commissioner offices have been established in 32 functional zones, such as the Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone, Dapeng New District in Shenzhen, and Hengqin New Area in Zhuhai, also co-located with local discipline inspection units.
In sum, my understanding of the structure is something like this:
The stationed and dispatched DI and Supervision agencies’ exercisable powers differ in the following manner:
Dispatched supervisory agencies generally have dual authority to investigate and handle both administrative violations and criminal duty-related offenses.
If additional coercive measures are needed, they must be approved by the dispatching agency, with implementation by relevant internal units. The dispatched group assists in the process.
Stationed supervisory agencies operate within the authority granted by their dispatching supervisory bodies.
For example, provincial-level stationed agencies may investigate non-provincial-level officials (at department level and below) for administrative violations using six measures: interviews, inquiries, document reviews, data collection, inspections, and appraisals.
For criminal investigations involving coercive measures such as interrogation, freezing assets, seizure, search, or detention, these are carried out by the main supervisory body through procedural channels.
With provincial supervisory commission approval and on a "case-by-case authorization" basis, stationed agencies may directly investigate department-level and lower officials from industries and systems managed by the entity wherein they are stationed.
Grassroots Discipline Inspection Committees (基层纪委): When referring to the grassroots in the context of the CPC, CPC members at the very basic levels of governance and administration (villages, townships, neighbourhoods and communities) are part of party-building. To get to grassroots DI Commissions, one must get to how a grassroots party committee is built. Here is a recap of the structure, based on CPC graphics from 2021.
Let’s start with a Party Branch. At the level of urban and rural neighborhoods up to the level of townships, government organs, state-owned enterprises, public institutions, schools, social and economic organizations, and military units, three members make a Party Branch, which may have a committee if the number of members is between eight and 50.
Several Party branches with a collective membership between 51 and 100 are grouped into a General Party Branch, which is also managed by its own committee.
If the number exceeds 100, the Party branches are grouped to be managed by a Primary Party Committee, which is elected by all the members or through a meeting of delegates when the number exceeds 500.
Finally, there are local party congresses. Under the CPC National Congress, at the provincial, city, and county levels, some congresses function like the spinal cord in a nervous system. A provincial Party congress has 400 to 800 delegates. A Party congress at the city level has 300 to 500 delegates, while the number is between 200 and 400 for the county level.
The delegates to these congresses come from the grassroots, and the election process starts with nominations by Party branches – one of the most basic nodes of grassroots administration. (There also exist villagers committees, urban resident committees, and employees’ trade union committees at the most fundamental level – one can refer to nice CGTN graphics from 2023 to understand these).
The Press Office of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC) publishes a nearly-monthly English-language E-magazine called ‘China Insight’. For an understanding of scale, below is a graphical representation of the numbers of grassroots (or primary-level) party organisations and party committees at the end of 2019.
Further, under the provisions of the ‘Regulations on the Work of Party Branches/ Rural Grassroots Organizations of the Communist Party of China’ (中国共产党农村基层组织工作条例), grassroots party committees have the right to establish discipline inspection committees. The DI Secretaries of these committees are powerful, working directly with the Party Committees as well as higher up DI&S Commissions to conduct investigations and studies, “grasp the actual situation of discipline inspection work,” and guide grassroots discipline inspection work.
With some of this background in mind, let’s come back to the new Regulations on the Working Procedures for Party Groups to Discuss and Decide on Party Member Disciplinary Matters.
The text empowers Party Groups (‘PGs’ for convenience, going forward) to take control of the discipline inspection and supervision work, and become a central node in sanctioning and punishing party members within their scope and jurisdiction for violations of discipline and loyalty. Hence, per Article 4 of the Regs., the main responsibility of PGs is to deliberate and decide on party disciplinary sanctions against party members within their units. In other words, PGs, and not party committees or local DI&S commissions, shall primarily decide what’s coming to whom. This is beside the cases where persons under investigation are Party Group leading cadres themselves.
What do Stationed and Dispatched DI&S groups do?
Broadly, per Article 3, when imposing party disciplinary sanctions on party members managed by the PG, the dispatched discipline inspection and supervision working committees, stationed institutions, and others shall perform their duties according to prescribed authority and procedures, strengthen coordination and communication, ensure orderly and smooth connection, form a working synergy, and achieve an organic unity of political, disciplinary, legal, and social effects.
Specifically, per Article 5, it is the stationed institution’s responsibility to file a case for investigation of party members managed by the PG. Subsequently, it shall notify the main leader of the PG of the unit where the person under investigation is located. The PG shall support the stationed institution in fulfilling supervisory responsibilities and handling disciplinary and criminal cases.
Further, the process of case handling is identified in Article 6. It explains that the stationed institution shall, after completing the investigation of suspected disciplinary or illegal issues involving leadership team members or other key supervised party members managed by the PG of the unit, conduct internal review and collective research, propose party disciplinary sanction recommendations, notify the PG, and then transfer the case to the corresponding dispatched institution for trial. It adds that for sensitive or special cases, with approval from the dispatched authority, the stationed institution may handle the case without transferring it to the dispatched institution.
Articles 7 and 8 discuss the power of the dispatched institution to review, supervise, and correct cases, balance the severity of sanctions, produce a trial report, and formally provide feedback to the stationed institution. After trial by the dispatched institution, the stationed institution shall notify the disciplinary sanction recommendations to the PG of the unit, which shall deliberate and decide. If the sanction recommendations differ from the party group’s opinions and cannot be reconciled, the stationed institution shall report to the dispatched authority for a decision.
Who Watches the Watchers?
If in case the person under investigation is a leading cadre from the PG itself, the stationed institution shall not only defer to the dispatched institutions, but also the agency that dispatched them in the first place (e.g., the Provincial DI&S Commission). Once a consensus is reached on the suitable punishment, the Party Group is still informed.
On this front, Article 12 also clarifies that there can be party members who work for local party organisations but their “cadre management” authority is with the PG of the organisation’s head department. In their case, if an investigation is filed by the stationed or dispatched institution, the decision on the nature of sanctions is to be made by the PG. If the case, however, is filed by the local DI&S commission, they decide the punishments and communicate to the PG. The PG’s opinions on the recommended sanctions, is of course, to be solicited before the local DI&S commission announces a decision.
Finally, the PG deliberates and finalises sanctions with consensus. Party disciplinary sanction decisions shall be made in the name of the PG and take effect from the date of the PG’s deliberation and decision. The decision is to then be communicated to the stationed institution, which will announce it within 60 days of the PG’s communication.
Where do grassroots DI Committees come in? Within 90 days from the effective date of the party disciplinary sanction decision made by the PG, the grassroots discipline committee shall submit the sanction decision and related materials to the corresponding dispatched institution for filing. The dispatched institution shall carefully review the filing materials, provide timely feedback on any issues, and urge resolution. Only after the resolution of any issues by the PG, can sanctions be implemented.
Additionally, Article 4 specifies that if a Party member among the personnel managed by the PG is to be sanctioned without the matter having been deliberated and decided upon in a PG meeting, the grassroots Party disciplinary inspection committee may review and approve it themselves, or submit the sanctions discussion to the grassroots Party committee for review and approval.
One final point of interest is made in Article 16. It discusses the special case of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). The provision is that the CCDI shall station a DI&S agency at SASAC, which shall assist the CCDI and the National Supervisory Commission in guiding the discipline inspection and supervision groups stationed at SOEs.
The Regulations seem detailed, but the intricate and overlapping responsibilities risk creating bureaucratic gridlock rather than true accountability. The numerous procedural layers and approval requirements can shield key decision-makers from real oversight, making it hard, both for outsiders and those within the system, to pinpoint who holds authority. If discipline is a red line, then the Regs. can be like red tape.
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