This timeline from 2013 has been updated on July 30, 2014.
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Zhou Yongkang, who retired last year from the Chinese Communist Party’s supreme decision making body, is facing an investigation on charges of corruption.
The decision to carry out the highest-level corruption investigation in recent Chinese history was made at the Communist Party’s annual summer retreat in Beidaihe near Tianjin earlier this month, sources close to the Chinese government have told the South China Morning Post.
The sources confirm long-standing rumours that Zhou’s downfall was imminent. The former member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with a cadre family background was a key ally of disgraced former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai who also has red pedigree. Bo’s trial on charges of corruption, embezzlement and abuse of power concluded earlier this week in Jinan, Shandong province.