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China dismisses top provincial official after corruption probe
BEIJING | Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:50am EST
(Reuters) - China has dismissed a top official in the southwestern province of Sichuan after putting him under investigation for "serious disciplinary violations", the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.
Sichuan's deputy party boss, Li Chuncheng, is the most senior person to be investigated since Xi Jinping became leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
Xi has vowed to crackdown on corruption, warning last month that if corruption was allowed to run wild, the party risked major unrest and the collapse of its rule.
"The central government has decided to remove all leadership positions of (Li)" due to suspicion of "serious disciplinary violations", Xinhua said in a brief report on its website, without elaborating.
The term "serious disciplinary violations" usually results in criminal charges.
Xi, who was named party leader in mid-November and will assume the presidency at an annual meeting of parliament in March, has appointed Wang Qishan, a man known as "the chief firefighter" for his ability to deal with crises, as his top graft fighter.
State media said a week ago that Li was being investigated by the party's discipline watchdog.
Li had served in Sichuan since 1998 and had been party chief of the prosperous provincial capital, Chengdu. He was only appointed as the province's deputy party boss in September of last year.
Li had also been elected to the party's Central Committee, a ruling council with about 200 full members and 170 or so alternate members, at last month's congress as an alternate member.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; editing by Jonathan Standing)
Chengdu official reveals details of disgraced cadre Li Chuncheng's graft
Disgraced ministerial-level official accused of making wife head of Chengdu Red Cross after it received funds following 2008 earthquake
Thursday, 13 December, 2012, 12:00am
Fiona Tam
Li Chuncheng
A senior district official in Chengdu has alleged that recently disgraced former Sichuan deputy party secretary Li Chuncheng offered bribes for promotion, sold official positions to incompetent candidates and made his wife head of Chengdu's Red Cross after it received huge sums following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Legal Daily yesterday quoted Shen Yong, director of the Chengdu district's United Front Work Department, as saying that Li had offered a huge bribe in the early 1990s to then-Heilongjiang deputy party boss Han Guizhi to win a promotion, had sold a large number of official positions after being appointed Chengdu's party chief in 2003, and had made staggering profits by colluding with developers and pushing ahead with unnecessary city redevelopment projects.
Han was given a suspended death penalty in 2005 for selling government jobs and corruption.
The newspaper said Qu Songzhi, Li's wife and deputy chairwoman of Chengdu's Red Cross, was also being investigated for graft, together with four other Red Cross staff. However, mainland news portals were ordered to delete similar reports yesterday afternoon, because they "involved too many officials".
Li, 56, was believed to be the first ministerial-level official to be investigated following the Communist Party's national congress last month.
At the congress, he became an alternate member of the party's Central Committee.
"Li Chuncheng offered tens of thousands of yuan in bribes to notoriously corrupt official Han Guizhi in the late 1990s, when she was Heilongjiang's deputy party chief," Shen said. "The size of the bribe would be equal to one million yuan (HK$1.2 million) today.
"By offering bribes, Li was promoted from party boss of Harbin's Communist Youth League committee to Harbin's vice-mayor, and then Chengdu mayor, Chengdu party boss and finally Sichuan deputy party boss."
Shen said he had reported the allegations against Li to party disciplinary authorities in 2008, but that Li had remained untouched until this month.
"To get his bribe money back, Li sold off official positions like crazy to incompetent candidates from 2003," he said. "The city's party cadres all felt that officials were promoted according to the size of the bribes they could offer."
The newspaper said Li, nicknamed "city demolisher", was also linked to the illegal wrecking of structures and numerous construction projects, allegedly in collusion with real estate developers.
In 2009, a Chengdu petitioner burned herself to death after her house was seized to make way for a development project.
