In the three months since the Communist Party of China (the “CPC”) convened its 18th National Congress in November 2012, the CPC’s new leaders, including newly appointed CPC General Secretary and China’s incoming president Xi Jinping, repeatedly have emphasized the important policy goal of combatting corruption. In several speeches since Mr. Xi took over the reins of the CPC, he cautioned that corruption could lead to “the collapse of the Party and the downfall of the state,” and has stressed that anti-corruption efforts need to target both “flies” and “tigers,” meaning both low and senior level officials.

In keeping with this theme, new regulations from the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission have restricted practices such as ostentatious floral displays and luxury banquets for officials. More recently, the Xinhua state news agency reported in advance of the Spring Festival holiday that Chinese radio and television stations were to ban advertisements for expensive gifts such as watches and gold coins, and the People’s Daily even warned that Valentine’s Day had become an opportunity for fraud and corruption among some party members. High-profile stories of corruption— often fed by the burgeoning Chinese blogosphere, including 400 million users of Weibo’s microblog and countless exchanges over QQ’s instant messaging service— have become mainstays in both Western and Chinese media outlets.