Two Chinese bureaucrats have failed to return from official trips to Paris and authorities are investigating their claims of health problems and other reasons, state media reports and officials said yesterday.
Government officials are required to immediately go back to China after overseas trips and it was unclear if the two had overstayed their visas. Their failure to return raised speculation they might be trying to avoid trouble at home, the reports said.
Yang Xianghong (楊湘洪), a 52-year-old district Communist Party chief in the southeastern coastal city of Wenzhou, left the group he was traveling with to visit his daughter, who lives in France, the state-run magazine Oriental Outlook said. Later he said he would stay on because of illness, it said.
An official in Yang’s Lucheng district in Wenzhou yesterday said that a mission was sent to France to urge Yang to return home immediately. Like many media-shy officials, the Wenzhou official refused to give his name.
An official in Shanghai’s Luwan district, who only gave his surname, Li, confirmed that the district’s deputy governor, Xin Weiming (忻偉明), had likewise failed to return from a trip to Paris earlier this month.
“There is an investigation under way,” Li said. “We have been trying to get in touch with Xin, but have been unable to reach him. He hasn’t returned to China.”
Both Yang and Xin told fellow members of their delegations that they were unwell and were staying in France for medical treatment, said the reports, which did not detail the official trips’ missions.
Last year, more than 800 officials facing corruption charges fled overseas. Of that number, 500 remain at large, the newspaper China Daily reported.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese