Chinese Deputy Minister of Public Security Sun Lijun (孫力軍), who was placed in charge of security affairs for Hong Kong in 2017, is being investigated by the country’s anti-graft body for alleged corruption.
Sun was being investigated for “serious violations of discipline and the law” — a euphemism for corruption, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.
The notice, published late on Sunday, did not give details on the alleged wrongdoings.
Sun, 51, was last seen in public early last month in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of China’s COVID-19 outbreak, the official People’s Public Security Daily reported.
He had also visited Hubei Province in February to encourage front line police officers, Xinhua news agency reported.
Sun led the powerful First Bureau within the Ministry of Public Security, according to his biography page at the China Law Society, where he was a vice president.
The First Bureau handles domestic political security as well as Hong Kong security affairs.
Sun was appointed director of the ministry’s Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan office in December 2017 and promoted to vice minister in March 2018.
A growing number of CCP cadres have been caught in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) anti-corruption campaign, which critics say has also served as a way to remove the leader’s political enemies.
The graft probe targeting Sun follows the high-profile arrest of Meng Hongwei (孟宏偉), the former Interpol president who also served as a vice minister of public security.
Meng was jailed for more than 13 years in January after pleading guilty to abusing his position and taking more than US$2 million in bribes.
The ministry’s party committee — an important decision-making body of which Sun was a member — said it “unanimously expressed its firm support” for the investigation into Sun.
“Sun’s investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law is the inevitable result of his long-term disregard of the party’s political discipline and rules, and his failure to observe discipline, disregard rules, ignorance, and wanton behavior,” the committee said in a statement.
Additional reporting by agencies
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