Along with the escalating corruption problem in China comes the Chinese government’s continuous effort to combat corruption. The increased intensity, duration and scope of anti-corruption campaign over time culminated with Xi’s effort to fight both ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’ during his administration. Despite growing research interests, few empirical studies took a dynamic approach to compare the effect of Xi’s campaign with that of his predecessors. Based on 2,034 cases, this study investigates judicial sentencing and its correlation with official ranking within a continuum of anti-corruption initiatives that spanned over several decades, incorporating the effect of both political changes (administration transition from Hu to Xi) and legal changes to the Criminal Law. The findings cast doubt on the claimed severity of Xi’s campaign relative to that of Hu’s but lend support to more visible and harsher punishment against the tigers than the flies. Our study sheds invaluable light to the ongoing debate about the relationship between official ranking and judicial punishment in the discussion of potentially effective strategies against corruption.