What the CCP refuses to recognize is that corruption cannot be rooted out as long as the Party maintains its monopoly on political power; with no organized opposition or functioning civil-society institutions, officials will continue to use their positions of public authority as a vehicle to generate personal wealth. The Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress gave primacy to the principle of market competition; but, as a senior Chinese banker commented in a related context some years back: “It’s quite hard to compete when you’re playing against the referee.”