Recently-exposed corruption cases are like a landslide in the political ecology, as they have involved a number of officials at various levels that collude with each other and engage in graft together. An article by Xinhua News Agency on Jan 3 pointed out that in the downfall of some "big tigers", which refers to senior corrupt officials under investigation or being sentenced, they were found to have close economic connections with a variety of corrupt officials at different levels. They thus formed factions or even gangs. The article names these gangs as the "petroleum gang", "secretary gang" and "Shanxi gang".

The corrupt officials collude with each other for their own private gains, which are likely to result in corruption. Such corruption seriously undermines the Party's cohesiveness and capacity as well as the interests of the general public.