Lin Zhe, a professor specialising in anti-corruption at the Communist party’s main training school, said: ‘I have no big hope for this meeting, but you have to remember that even repeating the old political slogans is quite significant. By repeating these slogans again and again it shows they weren’t able to solve the problem in the past but it also shows they at least know there is still a problem.’ 

Minor reforms

Zhang Ming, a politics professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, said: ‘Of course there will be no discussion about implementing judicial independence, although there may be some minor reforms – the central government may take some judicial power away from local governments.’ Source: Financial Times