Since the start of this year, several executives and senior officials in China’s tobacco industry have been under investigation by China’s top disciplinary watchdog.
Zhu Shaoming, former general manager of China Tobacco Yunnan Industrial Co., Ltd. (“Yunnan Tobacco”), is “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law” and is currently “undergoing disciplinary inspection,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a notice on June 2.
Both Zhu’s predecessor and successor are also under disciplinary investigation.
Zhang Shuichang, Zhu’s predecessor, who was removed from the general manager’s office in 2010, is being probed under the same allegations as Zhu, CCDI announced on Jan. 16.
Zhou Tao, who succeeded Zhu as the general manager of Yunnan Tobacco in 2018, turned himself over to the authorities in 2022 while he was still in office, Chinese news portal Sohu reported earlier this month. The report didn’t mention any allegations against Zhou.
Yunnan Tobacco has net assets of $32 billion and is the largest of China Tobacco’s 19 provincial-level subsidiaries.
China Tobacco, also known as China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC), is a state-owned manufacturer of tobacco products under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The company also functions as the State Tobacco Administration, the industry watchdog responsible for tobacco regulation in China.
Wu Yi and Gu Bo, deputy general managers of Yunnan Tobacco, are also under disciplinary investigation for allegations of “serious violations of discipline and law,” the CCDI announced on June 6 and Jan. 16, respectively.
China Has Reached a ‘Dead End’
Arthur Waldron, China historian and Lauder professor of international relations in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, said the CCP is heading toward “disintegration.”“I believe that China is in this stage of disintegration or ‘jie ti (解體),’ and it’s something that you don’t see immediately,” Waldron said during an interview with The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program in 2019.
He recalled a conversation with an unidentified person who is a close adviser to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
CCP Is ’the Most Corrupt Political Party’
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “the most corrupt political party in the world,” and it is already “rotten to the core,” according to Wang Youqun, a former aide and copywriter for the CCP’s former anti-corruption tsar, Wei Jianxing.He told The Epoch Times that Wei, during a general meeting of the CCDI in 1997, said there were too many corrupt officials and that only the unlucky ones were purged.
Wang said the only way out for China is to remove the CCP from power.