This year's annual session of the National People's Congress may very well go down as one of the most consequential in recent Chinese history. There were significant changes made to the Constitution, major personnel appointments, and an important initiative to restructure the bureaucracy. The NPC approved a plan to reorganize government ministries, commissions and other agencies, as well as their roles and responsibilities. The plan to restructure China's government is central to efforts to improve both the government's efficiency and provide a better definition of the Communist Party of China and State responsibilities.

President Xi Jinping has made it quite clear that he wants a more coherent and efficient bureaucracy. For some time now there has been a need to restructure the bureaucracy. Director of the CPC Central Committee General Office Ding Xuexiang has noted the overlap of Party and government organizations has led to problems of responsibility, accountability, organization, effectiveness and responsiveness. These problems have, in turn, made officials more prone to corruption, which damages the relationship between the Party and the people and undermines confidence in the government. If the Party's role is to lead and coordinate the efficient running of the government and to promote the realization of equitable and sustainable development, that cannot be accomplished without overhauling the bureaucracy.

This includes pragmatic constitutional revision in order to establish the constitutional and legal status of discipline monitoring as well as to reorganize the structure of China’s discipline inspection and anti-corruption efforts.

For decades, China has had a dual-track anti-corruption system. Merging the anti-corruption system in a single institution strengthens the Party's centralized and unified leadership over anti-corruption work. A recent CPC Central Committee communique noted that the "reform to establish a national supervisory system is a major decision to strengthen the self-supervision of the Party and the State". The creation of a single anti-corruption commission is a practical step in Xi's attempt to centralize the Party’s authority over anti-corruption efforts.

China's current anti-corruption campaign ramped up when Xi took over as CPC general secretary in 2012. During his report to the 19th CPC National Congress in October, Xi vowed that the fight against corruption would continue until "complete victory", and warned that "corruption remains the biggest threat to the Party". This was rightly interpreted to mean that the anti-corruption campaign would not slow down. And it has not. Given what we have witnessed at the 19th CPC National Congress, the Third Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, and the recent two sessions, anti-corruption efforts will definitely increase in the years ahead.

Xi's emphasis on the Party's moral standing and the necessity to maintain the people's trust should not be underestimated. He sees the anti-corruption campaign as his solemn task to protect both the Party's legitimacy and its ability to rule. And he has regularly underscored his concern that the Party and the State must continue hard measures in order to fight corruption.

It is this concern about continuing the relentless fight against corruption that inspired both the constitutional revision and the legislation that established the National Supervisory Commission.

During the past five years, China has encountered some difficulty in broadly expanding the anti-corruption campaign because the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is a Party organ. The National Supervisory Commission, which is at the same level as the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, complements the anti-corruption work that has been done by the CCDI. Additionally, the creation of the commission eliminates the difficulties of discipline enforcement by institutionalizing the pursuit and enforcement of anti-corruption laws and regulations by making it a permanent feature of the State. The National Supervisory Commission will report to both the Party and the NPC.

One of the most important challenges facing the CPC's overall leadership and long-term governance is the effective supervision of power. Deepening and reforming the national supervision system is a major innovation in improving the supervision system of the NPC by strengthening the supervisory function of the NPC as an organ of State power.

Frankly, the National Supervisory Commission could be one of the biggest developments of Xi's second term as president. The commission will bolster Xi's anti-corruption campaign because of the sheer number of people who will fall under the new commission’s jurisdiction: Nearly 90 million CPC members and about 60 million people who work in the government but are not Party members, including doctors, university lecturers and employees of State-owned enterprises. All will be subject to the anti-corruption campaign, from the village level to the national level.

The creation of the National Supervisory Commission shifts China from a horizontal reporting system controlled by local CPC officials in their own jurisdiction to a vertical reporting system, in which local officials will be controlled by superior levels within the National Supervisory Commission. Streamlining the discipline inspection and supervision process reduces the likelihood that entrenched cliques can escape anti-corruption enforcement. Moving the anti-corruption apparatus out of the Party allows the National Supervisory Commission to act more freely than the CCDI.  Simply stated, it will allow anti-corruption officials to target individuals that the Party has previously been unable to target.

During the past five years, one of Xi's successes as the Party's general secretary has been the ability to take down a number of corrupt officials who damaged both the Party and citizens' trust. His success in continuing to combat and root out both "tigers and flies" epitomizes the CPC's success in governing a country with a large population and maintaining an economy that has managed to keep up long-term rapid development and shared prosperity. Successfully combating corruption will allow China to maintain progress toward the Party's "Two Centenary Goals" of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2021 and building a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by 2049.

Jon Taylor is a professor of political science at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, United States.The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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