Chen Gang, vice-mayor of Beijing from 2006 to 2017, has been detained on suspicion of corruption. Photo: Boao Forum </s> A former vice-mayor of Beijing has been detained as part of an investigation into alleged corruption and amid reports he may have had links to fugitive tycoon Guo Wengui.

Chen Gang, who was head of urban development in the Chinese capital for more than a decade, was taken into custody on suspicion of “serious violations” of party discipline and state law, the National Supervisory Commission said on Sunday, making him the first high-profile official of 2019 to be accused of the standard euphemism for corruption.

Ex-spy chief gets life sentence for taking US$15.8 million in bribes

The statement did not elaborate, but Chinese news outlet Caixin reported on Monday that Chen, 52, had used his authority to help Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, to obtain loans and gain government approval for property developments in Beijing.

Guo now lives in New York, but is wanted in China in connection with a string of alleged crimes including corruption and rape.

Chen was once considered a rising star in Chinese politics and in 2006 was appointed vice-mayor of Beijing with responsibility for urban planning ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

In 2012 at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party he was made an alternate member of the Central Committee – the largest of China’s elite decision-making bodies with more than 370 full and alternate members – only to lose the position at the party congress five years later.

No let-up for corrupt ‘tigers’ in 2018 as China’s graft-busters claim more big scalps

He also lost his post as vice-mayor at the 2017 congress and was reassigned to the South-North Water Diversion Project, before moving on again last year to head the China Association for Science and Technology.

According to the Caixin report, Chen’s links to Guo date back to 2008 when he gave the green light to plans for the development of an office building that was larger than had been approved.

The two men had a mutual associate in Ma Jian, then state security minister, who was sentenced to life imprisonment on corruption charges last month.

In a videotaped confession Ma said he approached Chen in 2008 to help secure approval for Guo’s project.

Guo, 51, left mainland China in 2013 and is known as a fierce critic of Beijing having made a series of corruption allegations against several senior Chinese officials. </s> BEIJING — A former Chinese provincial Communist Party boss was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve Sunday as part of the country's ongoing crackdown on corruption at all levels.

The Anyang City Intermediate People's Court in Henan Province said Bai Enpei was found guilty of taking "a huge amount of bribes" and possessing a large amount of income from unidentified sources.

Bai had been a senior lawmaker with the national legislature and formerly served as the top-ranking official in the western provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan. His entire personal assets were also confiscated and he was barred from ever again holding office.

Suspended death sentences are usually reverted to life imprisonment after two years with good .

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to end corruption and government waste, although critics have accused him of using the campaign to attack political rivals.

Thousands of officeholders have been investigated as part of the campaign, and some Chinese have complained that the drive has resulted in bureaucratic paralysis as officials refuse to perform certain standard tasks out of fear of being accused of bribe-taking. </s> BEIJING (AP) — A former Chinese provincial Communist Party boss has been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve as part of the country’s ongoing crackdown on corruption at all levels.

The Anyang City Intermediate People’s Court in Henan Province said Sunday that Bai Enpei was found guilty of taking “a huge amount of bribes” and possessing a large amount of income from unidentified sources.

Bai had been a senior lawmaker with the national legislature and formerly served as the top ranking official in the western provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan.

Suspended death sentences are usually reverted to life imprisonment after two years with good behavior.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to end corruption and government waste, although critics have accused him of using the campaign to attack political rivals. </s> BEIJING, Sept 13 (Reuters) - China has appointed former Communist Party secretary of Hubei province Li Hongzhong as the new party chief for the strategic port city of Tianjin, days after announcing a corruption investigation into the northeastern city's former mayor.

Dozens of senior officials have been investigated or jailed since President Xi Jinping assumed power almost four years ago, vowing to go after corruption and warning, like others before, the problem threatens the party's grip on power.

The party's graft-busting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said on Saturday that the mayor and acting party chief of Tianjin, 61-year-old Huang Xingguo, was suspected of "serious discipline breaches", a euphemism for corruption.

"Huang Xingguo will no longer act as Tianjin party secretary, has been excused from his positions as municipal deputy party secretary, standing committee member, and mayor, and will be handled according to relevant laws and regulations," Xinhua said. It gave no other details.

Li, 60, has been appointed as Tianjin's party secretary, a post that outranks the mayor, and would no longer hold his positions in Hubei, the official Xinhua news agency said in a short article.

Tianjin is an important port city about an hour from Beijing by car that has ambitions to become a financial hub for northern China. It is one of four conurbations - along with Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing - termed a municipality, giving it the same high status as a province.

In August last year, a series of massive explosions at a chemicals warehouse in Tianjin killed about 170 people, sparking anger nationwide that it had been built so close to residential areas.

Last month, the party announced it was investigating Yin Hailin, a long-time city planning official who became Tianjin's deputy mayor in 2012, also on suspicion of corruption.

Huang's fall from grace appears to have come out of the blue. On Saturday, the official Tianjin Daily covered his visit to a middle school on its front page and praised teachers for their work.

Critics have accused Xi of using the corruption campaign as a cover to root out political rivals, though he has denied this.

Last year, a Chinese court jailed former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang for life for bribery, leaking state secrets and abuse of power.

He was the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft probe since the party swept to power in 1949. </s> A former top Chinese Communist Party official who was once tipped for a top leadership post was sentenced to life in prison for bribery, Chinese state media said today, the latest senior cadre to fall in President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption crusade. Sun Zhengcai, a former Politburo member and party chief of the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing, was found guilty of taking over 170 million yuan ($26.7 million) in bribes, the official Xinhua news service said, adding that his “illegal gains” would be confiscated. </s> A Chinese court handed down a death sentence on Wednesday for Zhang Zhongsheng, former vice-mayor of the city of Luliang, who has been convicted on corruption charges.

The court cited Zhang’s “extreme greed” to explain the harsh sentence, which China’s state-run Global Times hailed as the “ultimate deterrent” and a powerful signal to other corrupt officials.

Zhang, 65, was convicted of taking over a billion yuan in bribes from 1997 to 2013, which works out to about $160 million in U.S. dollars. Two of the individual bribery cases against him involved amounts of over 200 million yuan. About a third of his illicit fortune remains unaccounted for, according to prosecutors.

Zhang was known as the “godfather” of Luliang for cutting himself a piece of just about every venture in the city, especially its increasingly lucrative coal projects, and he was far from the only official who needed to have his palm greased before deals could be consummated. The vice-mayor’s lavish lifestyle was especially galling given the general poverty of the province surrounding his city.

The court breathlessly charged that Zhang “crazily took bribes from 1997 to 2013 and did not restrain himself after the 18th National Party Congress and caused extraordinarily great losses to the nation and its people and should be punished severely by law.”

In other words, he kept taking bribes after Chinese President Xi Jinping launched his much-ballyhooed war on corruption, which was very bad form on his part. The court mentioned concerns about Zhang setting an especially bad example for other officials that could best be corrected by giving him the most severe sentence.

The Global Times notes that death sentences are rare for corruption in China, citing a previous example in which a senior lawmaker was given a capital sentence for poaching a considerably smaller sum than Zhang did, although the sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

Two other vice-mayors who were convicted of corruption were put to death in 2011. The amounts in their cases were much smaller than Zhang’s billion-yuan haul. Their harsh sentences were based in part on the notion that they were holding up projects important to the Chinese people in order to extract bribes, which is also one of the allegations leveled against Zhang.

“According to the court, Zhang used his position to seek benefits for bribe payers through intervening in Lüliang’s economic development, severely infringed the integrity of Chinese officials, damaged their reputation, caused grave social impacts in not only Shanxi Province but the entire nation and inflicted particularly heavy losses on the State and people. Therefore the court handed down the ultimate punishment,” the Global Times explained.

Zhang’s impending date with the executioner is seen by the Global Times as firm evidence that China has achieved “law-based governance” and that “the fight against corruption is gaining unstoppable momentum,” as officials at all levels gain a healthy “respect for the law” and “fear of discipline.”

It will not just be administrative officials getting that message, as the UK Daily Mail points out the National People’s Congress is in the process of creating an anti-graft agency with power over just about everyone in the public sector, which means just about everyone in China.

“This means the Communist Party-led anti-corruption agency would police not only the party’s cadres, but also doctors, teachers, entertainers and other state employees,” the Daily Mail muses.

Under Chinese law, Zhang still has the option of appealing his death sentence, and it must be approved by the Supreme Court in Beijing before it can be carried out. Given how often the Global Times chirps about his “immediate execution,” it doesn’t seem like the editors think much of his chances. </s> This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The mayor of the major northern port city of Tianjin is being investigated on suspicion of corruption, China’s ruling Communist party said on Saturday, the latest senior official to be caught up in a war on deep-seated graft.

Huang Xingguo, 61, was suspected of “serious discipline breaches”, the party’s central commission for discipline inspection said, using the party’s normal euphemism for corruption.

Huang, who is also Tianjin’s acting Communist party chief, became mayor in 2008.

Tianjin is an important port city about an hour’s drive from Beijing that has ambitions to become a financial hub for northern China.

It is one of four conurbations – along with Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing – termed a municipality, giving it the same high status as a province.

'It's getting worse': China's liberal academics fear growing censorship Read more

In August last year, a series of massive explosions at a chemicals warehouse in Tianjin killed about 170 people, sparking anger nationwide that it had been built so close to residential areas.

Last month, the party announced it was investigating Yin Hailin, a long-time city planning official who became Tianjin’s deputy mayor in 2012, also on suspicion of corruption.

Dozens of senior people have been investigated or jailed since President Xi Jinping assumed power almost four years ago, vowing to go after corruption and warning, like others before, that the problem threatens the party’s grip on power.

Huang’s fall from grace appears to have come out of the blue.

On Saturday, the official Tianjin Daily covered his visit to a middle school on its front page and praised teachers for their work.

Critics have accused Xi of using the corruption campaign as a cover to root out political rivals, though he has denied this.

Last year, a Chinese court jailed former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang for life for bribery, leaking state secrets and abuse of power.

He was the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft probe since the party swept to power in 1949.

It was not possible to reach Huang for comment and unclear if he had retained a lawyer. </s> A Chinese Court on Tuesday sentenced Sun Zhengcai, former agricultural minister and ex secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), to life imprisonment for taking more than 170 million yuan ($26 million dollars) in bribes.

The Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin Municipality said Sun will be deprived of his political rights for life, and the state will confiscate all his personal property and illegal profits.
Chen Gang, the former vice-mayor of Beijing, is detained for corruption.