What’s new: Zhou Jiangyong, former party chief of the capital of the East China’s Zhejiang province, has been expelled from China’s Communist Party and removed from official duties for “supporting the disorderly expansion of capital,” according to a statement released by the country’s top anti-graft body Wednesday.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement that after an investigation, the former party chief of Hangzhou was found “colluding with businesses, supporting the disorderly expansion of capital and deliberately obstructing an official investigation,” among other violations of law and party discipline.
Why it matters: Zhou is believed to be the first former senior official accused of supporting the “disorderly expansion of capital,” a major focus of Beijing’s crackdown on illegal ties between government and businesses. The CCDI statement did not elaborate on this account.
In a CCDI plenary session last week, the party’s top leadership vowed to tackle “new situations and challenges” in its anti-corruption campaign, including corrupt practices behind capital expansion and platform monopolies.
Zhou was placed under investigation for suspected corruption in August. The 54-year-old former official was found to have accepted bribes worth some 90 million yuan ($14.2 million) from a local construction company owner, in exchange for offering the company help in getting project tenders through Zhou’s brother, according to a recent documentary co-produced by the CCDI and state broadcaster CCTV.
Contact reporter Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
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