Official corruption fighters in China, those working for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), presented their accomplishments in 2014 and provided updates on actions taken against many corrupt officials, in a press conference on Jan. 7.
A total of 68 cases, either closed or currently under review, were announced by Huang Shuxian, deputy director of the CCDI and the head of the Ministry of Supervision.
The case against the biggest fish of all, former security chief Zhou Yongkang, has been sent to the judiciary organs—meaning the case has been submitted to the prosecutor’s office for the launch of criminal prosecution.
Nearly 6 months have passed since the state-run news agency Xinhua announced that Zhou was being investigated.
Accomplishments
Huang applauded the accomplishments the anti-corruption watchdog has made—inspection teams visiting a total of 19 different departments and state-run companies, and a total of 21 provinces, districts and cities, as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, in less than 2 years.
The discovery that the north Shanxi Province is a cesspool for corruption, and problems associated with officials like Bai Enpai, Wang Qinliang, Wu Changshun and Yang Weize, have been the great achievements of the inspection teams, according to Huang.
Wu Changshan, the head of the Public Security Bureau in the metropolis Tianjin in northern China, was suspected of “severe violations of the law.”
Yang Weize, the Party Secretary of Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, was also slapped with a charge of “severe violation of discipline of the law.”
The commonly used charge of “violation of the law”is often a byword for corruption in China.
Not all corruption fighters are paragons of virtues either. A total of 1,575 corruption fighters, with 34 of them with a department-level rank and 229 with a county-level rank, were purged in 2014, according to Huang.
Corrupt Officials
In addition to Zhou’s, the cases against a total of 30 officials have been sent to a prosecutor’s office for criminal charges. These include Jiang Jiemin, Li Dongsheng, Li Chongxi and Shen Weichen.
Jiang Jiemin, was involved with embezzlement of state-run National Petroleum Corporation where he had worked as the chairman.
Li Dongsheng, former president of Party mouthpiece CCTV, had ties to sex scandals, including sending Jia Xiaoye as part of a “sex bribes package” to Zhou. Jia then became Zhou’s wife. He left CCTV to become head of the Party office created to persecute the spiritual practice of Falun Gong.
Li Chongxi, formerly a secretary for Zhou, was purged in July last year, while Shen Weichen was under investigation in April last year after a top editor with Xinhua committed suicide.
The CCDI press conference also announced that cases being built against high-ranking officials Ling Jihua and Su Rong are currently being reviewed.
Epoch Times commentator Xia Xiaoqiang said that the news conference provided some clues as to what would happen to Ling Jihua, an aide to former Party leader Hu Jintao. Ling was under investigation for “serious disciplinary violations,” as reported by mouthpiece media on Dec. 2.
“It is only natural that the recent case against Ling Jihua would soon make it to the judicial process,” said Xia.
However, bigger tigers, or more powerful officials, would soon be in line for the next round of corruption campaign, according to Xia.
“Xi Jinping is simply tallying up tigers who have a ranking below that of Zhou Yongkang,” said Xia. “Zeng Qinghong and Jiang Zemin are the next tigers to be soon targeted.” Jiang Zemin was head of the CCP from 1989-2002. Zeng Qinghong was a close ally of Jiang’s who held several very high-ranking posts.
Please read the original Chinese article.
