BEIJING (AP) — Several citizen activists who want many of the same things Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he wants — less corruption and a fairer society — stand trial this week in Beijing in cases reflecting Xi’s intense campaign to quash any potential threat to one-party rule.

The essentially closed-door trials that started Wednesday underline the Xi administration’s determination to nip the buds of any social groups that might blossom outside the Communist Party, even if their goals largely overlap with the party’s stated drive to root out corruption, restore its connection with ordinary folks and build an equal and fair society.