China’s disgraced former domestic security chief, Zhou Yongkang (周永康), looks set to be expelled from the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at a key meeting next week, sources said, possibly paving the way for his formal prosecution.
Zhou is the most senior party member to have been targeted in a corruption probe since the party swept to power in 1949 and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has made fighting graft a cornerstone of his administration.
At a four-day party plenum beginning on Monday in Beijing, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, its main anti-graft body, will present its findings in a report on Zhou, said three sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The central committee is expected to approve [a proposal to] expel Zhou for grave violations of party discipline and decide whether to turn him over for prosecution,” one source with leadership ties said.
The source added that the judicial process could be lengthy.
“If the central committee votes to prosecute Zhou, the process will drag out due to a lack of [judicial] manpower and the complexity of the case,” the source said.
The central committee is the largest of the party’s elite decisionmaking bodies, made up of about 200 members who can vote and about 170 alternate members who do not have a vote.
The party announced in July that Zhou was being investigated by its anti-corruption watchdog for suspected “serious disciplinary violations,” the usual euphemism for graft, although it could also imply other wrongdoing.
The move followed months of speculation about his fate.
It has not been possible to reach Zhou for comment on any of the allegations against him.
Zhou, 71, was the security tsar within the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s apex of power, for five years until he retired in 2012.
For Xi, taking on such a senior figure appears to be a calculated risk. The public move against Zhou is the pinnacle of a campaign to bring down “tigers” and “flies,” or corrupt officials of senior and low rank.
By breaking an unwritten rule that members of the standing committee would not come under scrutiny after retirement, Xi could antagonize other party elders who fear that they and their families could be next if the crackdown does not ease off after Zhou’s investigation, analysts said.
However, sources said that influential former Chinese presidents Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Jiang Zemin (江澤民), gave their consent for Xi to investigate Zhou.
Also, unlike Bo Xilai (薄熙來), a charismatic ally of Zhou’s who was felled from his position as Chongqing party chief in 2012, Zhou has little public sympathy and many of his supporters in the party have already been removed.
Expulsion from the party is the usual precursor to handing over corruption cases to the judiciary for prosecution.
Rule of law has for the first time been made the main topic for discussion at the plenum, a meeting held most years and always amid tight security and great secrecy.
However, previous plenums have discussed the fate of fallen senior officials.
“He will almost certainly be expelled from the party at the plenum. His case will definitely come up, as this is what has happened in past plenums,” said Zhang Ming (張鳴), an expert on domestic politics at Beijing’s Renmin University.
Zhang added that a slight element of doubt existed about whether the expulsion could happen next week because Zhou is a retired official and does not hold any posts.
“The law is the yardstick for political life in China which nobody can transgress, including the highest levels of leadership,” the party’s official People’s Daily wrote on its Web site earlier this month.
“For somebody of the level of Zhou Yongkang, the investigation into his discipline violations should reach a conclusion at the fourth plenum,” it added, using the formal name for next week’s meeting.
Zhou has been put under virtual house arrest since late last year, and investigated for corruption involving family members and political allies, as well as ordering the bugging of the telephones of top leaders and the mysterious death of his former wife in a road accident, sources have said.
More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies and their business associates have been arrested, detained or questioned over the past two years, according to sources briefed on the investigations.
The trials of some of Zhou’s allies could start as early as this year, the sources said.
Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan (US$14.5 billion) from these people, the sources added.
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