For China’s anti-corruption crackdown, Fridays and weekends are good days for big news
China's Communist Party’s top anti-graft agency has revealed that Fridays and the weekend are officially good days for revealing big news about corrupt senior officials.
For the past two years it has been accepted – almost as a rule of thumb – among China’s media and interested mainlanders that Fridays and weekends are the likely time for senior officials to fall from grace over allegations of corruption.
Yet few observers could tell why – until now.
People have described the pattern as “Mondays for flies, Weekends for tigers” ever since President Xi Jinping launched his anti-graft campaign against both low-level officials and those in the most senior roles.
Indeed, as midnight struck to mark the first Saturday of this month, the Communist Party announced the conclusion of its internal inquiry into the former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, with the case officially handed over to prosecutors.
Former deputy national police chief Li Dongsheng, former Jiangxi party chief Su Rong, and former Hainan deputy governor Ji Wenlin are among the “tigers” to have appeared on the anti-graft agency website late in the week.
Now the party’s top anti-graft agency has candidly revealed that Friday and weekends are officially good days for revealing big news about corrupt senior officials.
