President Xi’s anti-corruption drive snares its biggest ‘tiger’
Print Edition
CHINA’S former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, one of the most powerful politicians of the past decade, is being investigated over suspicions of corruption, the ruling Communist Party announced yesterday.
The Party is investigating Zhou for suspected “serious disciplinary violations,” its Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a brief statement, using the usual euphemism for corruption.
The decision was made in line with the Party’s constitution and anti-corruption regulations, the statement said.
It was reported in early December that Zhou had been placed under virtual house arrest after President Xi Jinping ordered a special task force to look into corruption accusations against him.
Zhou, 71, becomes the most senior member of the Party to be investigated since the infamous Gang of Four — a faction that included the widow of founding leader Mao Zedong — were put on trial in 1980.
Zhou was a member of the Party’s Politburo Standing Committee and held the immensely powerful post of security chief until he retired in late 2012.
Xi has made fighting corruption a central theme of his administration and has promised to take down “tigers” — senior officials — as well as “flies,” or those of lower rank, who are implicated.
During his five-year tenure as security chief, Zhou oversaw the police force, civilian intelligence apparatus, paramilitary police, judges and prosecutors.
Zhou was last seen at an alumni celebration at the China University of Petroleum on October 1.
News of the investigation came as the Party announced that the Fourth Plenum will be held in October and focus on “key issues concerning the rule of law.”
Zhou joined the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007 while also heading the central Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
After years in the oil industry and related ministries, Zhou went on to run the teeming and huge southwestern province of Sichuan, before being named as public security minister in 2002.
The announcement of Zhou’s investigation shows that the Party’s anti-corruption crackdown is gathering steam. Last month, the Party said it would court-martial one of its most senior former military officers, Xu Caihou, also on charges of corruption.
Earlier this month, three associates of Zhou — Ji Wenlin, Zhou’s former secretary; Yu Gang, an ex-vice director of the office of the Central Politics and Law Commission; and Tan Hong, formerly of the public security ministry — were stripped of their Party membership.
Zhou’s son, Zhou Bin, has also been arrested in Yichang in central China for suspected “illegal business operations,” Caijing magazine said.
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