Former Chinese president Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) top aide has been arrested on corruption charges, stripped of his party membership and removed from all government positions, China’s state media said on Monday.
The ruling by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Politburo Standing Committee came seven months after Ling Jihua (令計劃) was placed under internal investigation for disciplinary violations.
The fall of Ling, whose former position is comparable to the US president’s chief of staff, has come amid a stern anti-corruption campaign by Hu’s successor, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The campaign is seen by many as a means to not only restore public confidence in the ruling party, but also to root out threats to Xi’s political dominance.
Photo: EPA
Jeffrey Bader, a senior fellow at Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution, said the expulsion of Ling from the party and the arrest was long expected.
“It’s the sign of the determination of Xi Jinpng and the leadership to go after high-level actors in the anti-corruption campaign,” Bader said.
Ling held a sensitive position, but never made it into the party’s top echelon.
His disgrace followed the fall of two more prominent Chinese political figures — former politburo member Bo Xilai (薄熙來) and Zhou Yongkang (周永康), who served on the Politburo Standing Committee until his 2012 retirement. However, unlike Bo and Zhou, Ling had no clear evidence of opposing Xi, and the Youth League faction to which Ling belonged has not been politically targeted at the highest level, Tsang said.
Ling, formerly head of the party’s general office under Hu, became well known in China in 2012 when his son crashed a Ferrari in Beijing with two nude or half-dressed women in the vehicle, according to various reports. Ling was accused of covering up the scandal.
Xinhua news agency said the internal investigation found Ling took huge amounts of money through bribery and used his position to seek benefits for others. It said Ling had allowed his family to benefit financially from his political influence.
In other developments, Chinese authorities are to prosecute one of the former top graft busters in Guangdong Province for corrupt practices, including bribery and interference in corruption investigations, the government said yesterday.
Zhong Shijian (鐘世堅), who had been head of Guangdong’s corruption prevention bureau, has been expelled from the CCP and handed over to legal authorities for prosecution, the party’s graft-fighting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.
A probe found that Zhong had interfered in cases, leaked details of investigations to those being probed, took bribes and gave bribes in exchange for promotions, among other crimes, it said.
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