In November 2016, the Communist Party published its Several Norms on Political Life Within the Party under the New Situation. One rule reads: “No one may treat the Party’s cadres as private property. Personal dependency relations are not allowed in the Party.” Another forbids members, above all senior cadres, to form “small mountaintops, small circles and small gangs,” to build private relationships or to cultivate personal power.
An article published in May 2017 quoted Xi Jinping on what he called the “circle culture” of some cadres. They spend all day pulling connections, he said, “analyzing whose person someone is and who promoted him,” and looking for “whose thigh they can hug.”