Chinese President Xi Jinping’s high-profile anti-graft campaign has scored an “overwhelming victory” and a large number of Chinese now believe that corruption levels are down in the country, says a new government-sanctioned policy book.

The book concludes that despite the success of the six-year-old campaign, the momentum of the anti-corruption drive is not slowing down but picking up pace. Xi launched the anti-graft campaign soon after taking over his first term as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012-13.

Hundreds of thousands of CPC cadres and officials have since been punished. Several high-profile CPC leaders have been swiftly investigated and removed from their powerful posts, which have led critics to say that the corruption was and possibly continues to be a weapon in Xi’s hand to tackle intra-party rivals and consolidate his grip on power.

Launching it, Xi had famously said the CPC will go after both “high-ranking tigers to lower-level flies” in the country.

Among the big tigers netted were top political leaders like Zhou Yongkang, former security czar, and Bo Xilai who at one point was expected to be part of the top leadership of the CPC. From the military, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, both former vice-chairpersons of the Central Military Commission were also punished.

Beijing also carried out such operations as ‘Sky Net’ and ‘Fox Hunt’ to hunt down venal officials who had fled abroad.

The campaign has seemingly polished the CPC’s image among the public though it is doubtful whether it is to the extent the new “Blue Book of Combating Corruption and Upholding Integrity” compiled by the China Anti-Corruption Research Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, claims.

The newspaper quoted him as saying that anti-corruption efforts have also been a feature in protecting people’s interests and alleviating poverty, which has won people’s favour. The report didn’t mention how that conclusion was drawn or whether it was purely anecdotal.