News analysis On Sept. 10, Chinese former police official Deng Huilin stood trial in the northern city of Baoding. Accused of accepting bribes, the forme head of public security in Chongqing, a southwestern megalopolis of 23 million people, pleaded guilty and expressed remorse for his actions. Deng was one among thousands of other security officials taken down in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, which had seen the expulsion of retired internet censorship boss Peng Bo from the Communist Party on Aug. 17, following a months long investigation. The recent purges of Deng, Peng, and others appear as a continuation of Xi’s protracted struggle to eliminate or reduce the influence of factions that have undermined his authority since he assumed office in 2012. The day before Deng’s trial, Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC) secretary-general Chen Yixin exhorted branches of the powerful Party organization to look out for “eight …