liuzhi

Liuzhi (留置, literally "retention in custody") is a coercive detention measure introduced by the Supervision Law of the People's Republic of China, enacted on 20 March 2018 by the 13th National People's Congress and effective the same day. It empowers the newly created supervisory commissions—headed by the National Supervisory Commission (NSC, 国家监察委员会)—to detain individuals under investigation for "duty-related" crimes such as bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of power. Liuzhi formally replaced shuanggui (双规), the extralegal, intra-Party disciplinary detention long operated by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), thereby giving a statutory veneer to what had been a Party-internal practice. Its constitutional anchor is the March 2018 amendment to the PRC Constitution, which added Articles 123–127 establishing supervisory commissions as a distinct branch of state power alongside the executive (State Council), judiciary, and procuratorate.

Under Article 22 of the Supervision Law, liuzhi may be imposed when investigators possess evidence of serious duty-related crimes and ordinary methods are deemed insufficient. Detention is permitted for up to three months, extendable once by a further three months, for a maximum of six months. Crucially, the detainee has no right to legal counsel during the liuzhi period, distinguishing it sharply from criminal detention under the Criminal Procedure Law, which guarantees lawyer access. The supervisory commission's jurisdiction extends not only to Communist Party members but to all public officials and persons exercising public power—including non-Party state employees, managers of state-owned enterprises, and public-school administrators—a significant expansion of the anti-corruption dragnet. Family notification is required within 24 hours unless it would impede the investigation, a broad exception in practice.

Liuzhi is the operational core of Xi Jinping's institutionalized anti-corruption campaign launched after the 18th Party Congress (2012) and consolidated through the NSC's creation in 2018. High-profile figures investigated under the supervisory system include former Public Security Vice-Minister Sun Lijun and numerous "tigers" (高级干部) and "flies" (基层干部). As of 2026 the measure remains fully operative; reported deaths in custody and allegations of coerced confessions have drawn criticism from bodies such as Amnesty International and UN human-rights rapporteurs, but no substantive procedural reform granting counsel access has been enacted. The merger of Party discipline (CCDI) and state supervision (NSC) under unified leadership—often described as "one institution, two nameplates" (一个机构两块牌子)—exemplifies the fusion of Party and state characteristic of the Xi era.

For exam purposes, liuzhi is most directly tested in China-focused governance and political-system papers and in comparative-government sections of FSOT and UPSC International Relations. Candidates should be able to (1) link liuzhi to the 2018 Supervision Law and the constitutional creation of supervisory commissions; (2) contrast it with the abolished shuanggui and with ordinary criminal procedure; and (3) analyze it as evidence of Party-state fusion and the rule-by-law (依法治国 as instrument) versus rule-of-law debate. A common question angle asks why liuzhi is considered an institutionalization—rather than a liberalization—of extralegal detention, requiring discussion of its statutory basis coupled with the absence of judicial oversight and counsel.