China's president warns the country's small ruling circle that he was disregarding "life, death and reputation" to break the "stalemate". For political analysts, the country's leadership has been rattled. For Xi, it is "make or break" time.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - President Xi Jinping told top officials during a tense Politburo meeting that he would disregard "life, death and reputation" to fight corruption because "the two armies of corruption and anti-corruption are in [. . .] a stalemate", which requires pursuing the anti-graft campaign to the very end. China's small ruling circle reacted with understanding and shock.

Xi met the Politburo on 26 June behind closed doors, but details about the meeting became public only when the Changbaishan Daily reported it on Monday.

A person familiar with the president's speech told the South China Morning Post earlier that Xi made the strongly worded speech to the Politburo.

According to some analysts, this is the official announcement of the campaign against Zhou Yongkang, the powerful former security chief, who is at the centre of a lengthy investigation that involved his entire power base that culminated with formal charges at the end of July 2014.

This is the first time since the days of Mao that a member of the Politburo is indicted.

For decades, Zhou built up his power base. Challenging him now means going for broke, which Xi did, a source said.

"[I] left life and death, as well as my personal reputation, out of consideration in the combat against corruption," Xi said, this according to Changbaishan city's party chief, Li Wei.

Li said the top leadership's remarks emphasised a sense of crisis, and some of the words were "shockingly" sharp and harsh.

The daily's article was soon deleted from the website as some internet operators said they received a gag order from propaganda authorities.

Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University in Beijing, said the remarks showed the anti-corruption campaign had certainly threatened some interest groups in the upper echelons.

"The combat between Xi and the interest groups has been white-hot and Xi also realised that [it] is make or break," he added.

• china
• corruption
• fight
• xi
• jinping
• politburo