Top party official in graft probe
Print Edition
CHINA announced a corruption investigation into a senior Communist Party official and national political adviser yesterday, as President Xi Jinping opens another front in his sweeping battle against deep-rooted graft.
In a terse and brief statement on its website, the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said Ling Jihua was being investigated for “suspected serious discipline violations,” the usual euphemism for graft. The anti-corruption watchdog gave no other details.
Ling is vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, a top advisory body.
He also heads the United Front Work Department of the Party’s Central Committee.
Ling found himself in the media spotlight after his son Ling Gu died in a Ferrari crash in Beijing in March 2012. Also in the car were two young women who were seriously injured, one was naked and the other partly clothed.
China’s Internet users questioned how the son of a Party official could afford a car worth a reported 5 million yuan (around US$800,000).
Ling was demoted in September 2012 after the deadly crash. He was dropped from his post as head of the Party’s General Office of the Central Committee.
He was then appointed as minister for the Party’s United Front Work Department, which is in charge of co-opting non-Communists, religious groups and ethnic minorities.
An investigation into his older brother, Ling Zhengce, was announced in June for suspected “serious discipline and law violations.”
Ling Zhengce was a vice-president of the CPPCC branch in north China’s Shanxi Province.
China’s campaign against official corruption has intensified since Xi took over as president, with several senior government figures and state company executives in detention.
The Party’s anti-corruption campaign has netted high-level “tigers” as well as low-level “flies,” with the powerful former security chief Zhou Yongkang being the highest-ranking official ensnared.
The Party is also investigating Xu Caihou, the retired deputy head of the Party’s Central Military Commission.
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