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China's former legal affairs chief under investigation

Source: Shanghai Daily | July 29, 2014, Tuesday | Online Edition

CHINA has begun an investigation into former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the last decade, on suspicion of corruption.

The ruling Communist Party has decided to probe Zhou for suspected "serious disciplinary violations", the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief dispatch, using the usual euphemism for corruption.

The investigation will be conducted by the Party's graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and the decision was made in line with the Party's constitution and anti-corruption regulations, Xinhua added, without giving details.

Zhou, 71, is the most senior Chinese politician to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the founding of the New China in 1949.

Zhou was a member of the Party's Politburo Standing Committee - China's apex of power - and held the immensely powerful post of security tsar until he retired in 2012.

During his five-year tenure as security chief, Zhou oversaw the police force, civilian intelligence apparatus, paramilitary police, judges and prosecutors. 

But Zhou became too powerful and that position was downgraded during a sweeping leadership reshuffle in 2012.

President Xi Jinping has made fighting deeply-engrained graft a central theme of his new administration, and has promised to take down "tigers" - or senior officials - as well as those of lower rank who are implicated in corruption.

In ordering the investigation, Xi has broken with an unwritten understanding that members of the Standing Committee will not be investigated after retirement.

Nation


 

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