The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) vice secretary in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu is being investigated, the Chinese corruption watchdog said yesterday, the latest senior official to fall in a sweeping anti-graft campaign.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has embarked on a campaign to root out deeply ingrained corruption since assuming office three years ago.
Chengdu CCP Vice Secretary Li Kunxue (李昆學) is “suspected of serious violations of discipline,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a one-line statement on its Web site.
Li was a long-serving official in Chengdu, the prosperous capital of Sichuan Province, a power base for disgraced former Chinese domestic security head Zhou Yongkang (周永康).
Zhou, 72, was jailed for life in June after a secret trial, the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the CCP swept to power in 1949.
Many of his former colleagues or political allies have been caught up in the anti-corruption campaign, although some analysts said Xi is also eliminating rivals.
The bribery case into Zhou’s ally and former Hainan Province vice governor Tan Li (譚力) has been transferred to Guangzhou city officials in Guangdong Province for prosecution, China’s top prosecutor said in a separate statement.
Former oil executives Jiang Jiemin (蔣潔敏) and Wang Yongchun (王永春), former Sichuan Province vice governor Guo Yongxiang (郭永祥) and Sichuan Province CCP deputy secretary Li Chuncheng (李春城) are among Zhou’s fallen allies.
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