While it is well known that corruption in China strongly correlates with increasing marketization, Xi has affirmed repeatedly that the latter will continue to be a cornerstone of China's economic reforms. Markets are not inherently immoral or necessarily sources of corruption or injustice; rather, in their basic form, they offer a means to help solve problems. When properly regulated and controlled, they can help address complicated problems associated with production and distribution. When unregulated and unlimited, they usually spark major global and regional crises, as was the case in 1929, 1997, and 2008, as well as contribute to worldwide political instability and environmental decline. So one might ask: How far will marketization go in China and what are its political implications? And, if increasing marketization can cause more corruption, then can the system reform quickly and deeply enough to curtail it?

It bears pointing out here that while many note the positive changes that have emerged since 1978, some also remember the relative lack of corruption that existed before then. Some Western observers concede the reasonableness of China's socialist market economy and political system in their current forms, but believe that increasing marketization will reach a tipping point and force a marketization of politics that runs counter to China's one-party system.

At the same time, the Chinese masses have changed significantly since Mao's time, and likewise, the Party's concepts of representation and legitimacy. Former leader Jiang Zemin argued that the Party's contemporary legitimacy is based less on its revolutionary heritage than its "position in power," and further, its need to represent a changing, more diverse China than the one encountered by Mao. Jiang concluded that today's Party must represent all who contribute positively to China's progress, be they workers, farmers, or even capitalists. Indeed, the latter, under Jiang's watch, were admitted to the Party for the first time. Nevertheless, the break-neck speed of development in China has been unavoidably uneven; some people did get rich first, as former leader Deng Xiaoping said they might, as did some regions. At the same time, as noted, marketization was accompanied by rising levels of corruption that simply overwhelmed the state and the Party's oversight and disciplinary apparatuses. These factors, among others, led to increasing unrest and led former leader Hu Jintao to initiate his harmonious society campaign, which was designed to smooth out the rougher aspects of development, but met with mixed results. However, incidences of unrest are down relative to the preceding period and among other significant advances, the recent implementation of a new national healthcare system should be viewed as a signature accomplishment, one that will help address inequalities and the real needs underlying them.

To be sure, the challenges facing China are too great to be significantly addressed through the mass line campaign alone, and certainly no one expects it to be a panacea. At the same time, campaigns like this one can provide a conceptual outline of where Xi hopes to lead the Party, especially when viewed in tandem with his China Dream campaign. They show Xi's insistence that the Party return to the mass line, and the idea that a single Party can and will lead China forward.

The author is associate professor of politics, East China Normal University; research fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, and assistant editor of U.S.-based Journal of Chinese Political Science