The head of the bureau that gathers China’s economic data is under investigation by the nation’s anti-graft agency in a possible expansion of an anticorruption campaign that has shaken state companies and securities firms.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics Chairman Wang Bao-an (王保安) is suspected of “severe disciplinary violations,” the Chinese Communist Party Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on Tuesday said in a statement.
Dozens of senior figures in China’s state-owned industry, finance firms and regulatory agencies have been detained in a four-year anti-corruption crackdown led by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Just hours before Tuesday’s announcement, Wang had spoken to reporters at a news conference about China’s economic performance last year.
Wang, 52, was appointed chairman of the statistics bureau in April last year after serving for 24 years in the Chinese Ministry of Finance.
Chinese anti-graft investigators can spend years assembling a case, suggesting accusations against Wang might stem from his previous post instead of his short tenure at the statistics agency.
Chinese regulators have wide discretion in making decisions that can affect billions of dollars in business.
The anti-graft committee this month reported about 282,000 officials were punished last year for rule violations.
The crackdown would continue this year with “intensity and pace unchanged,” it said.
Police in September last year said the general manager of state-owned Citic Securities — the country’s biggest brokerage — and other executives were suspected of insider trading.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in