Xi Jinping ensnares senior official in national ‘crackdown on corruption’

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has launched an investigation into the most senior party official in the booming technology centre of Hangzhou over corruption allegations.

Zhou Jiangyong, the city’s 53-year-old party chief, heads “one of the country’s richest cities” and had “announced plans to turn Hangzhou into a hallmark project for President Xi Jinping’s vision” of “common prosperity”, The Times said.

But he has now been “placed under investigation for disciplinary violations” – a term used by the CCP to describe allegations of corruption – making him “the first official in Hangzhou to leave his job since China began economic reforms in the 1980s”, the paper added.

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‘Sweeping crackdown’

According to state-owned newspaper the Global Times, Zhou is “under both disciplinary and supervisory investigations by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission”.

He is “the most senior official in Zhejiang [Province] to be investigated in recent years”, while the opening of a formal inquiry also makes him “the first senior official investigated in the province since the 19th CPC National Congress was held in 2017”.

His sudden “downfall has sent shockwaves throughout the country and cast a spotlight on the wealthy city”, The Times said, which now finds itself “at the centre of Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption crackdown”.

Details of his alleged offences have not been made public. However, “it follows a Beijing campaign that demands the city’s officials report any potential conflicts of interest with the business sector”. It is also understood that Zhou’s links with e-commerce giant Alibaba – which is headquartered in Hangzhou – “are being looked into”.

Unverified social media posts also claimed that his “family bought up shares in a fintech company ahead of its initial public offering in November, before the listing plans were scrapped”, reported Bloomberg. “The postings, which didn’t name the company, have since been deleted.”

‘Common prosperity’

It is thought that the decision to investigate Zhou is “a sign that Xi Jinping is moving to crack down on more covert forms of corruption”, The Times reported. Experts have also said that the “case is being used as an example of the president’s displeasure with the close ties between government and business that exists in the province”.

Earlier this month, Xi Jinping hinted at a crackdown on corruption, telling a meeting of CCP officials: “Common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism, and an important hallmark of China’s modernisation. We must promote common prosperity in high-quality development.”

Zhou responded to the comments by saying that Hangzhou “must play the role of the lead goose, as Zhejiang develops and builds the common prosperity demonstration zone with high quality”.

His arrest is seen as an effort to “untangle dubious ties between local officials and companies in Hangzhou”, The Times added, while serving as “the testing ground for Xi Jinping’s plan to build a socialist nation where wealth should be distributed more fairly”.

Home to more than a million private companies, Hangzhou accounts for 61.2% of the local economy. It has “achieved high-speed development in recent years”, the Global Times said, and is in “China's fourth-largest province in terms of GDP”.

“The underground financial market is quite active in economically thriving coastal areas, and the problem of officials engaging in illegal loans has been addressed more than once,” Nie Huihua, an expert on government-business relations, told the state-owned Beijing News.

“Right now state powers prevail in the government-business relations, which is prone to corruption,” Nie added. “The businesspeople, at a disadvantage, are likely to ‘target’ officials to plot corruption.”