Chinese nuclear fuel engineer Li Guangchang caught in anti-corruption net targeting ‘high-risk’ areas

Li, former nuclear fuel director at China National Nuclear Corporation, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, CCDI says
Communist Party’s top corruption watchdog says he is undergoing disciplinary inspection and supervision, but website post offers no details

Corruption in China

Amber Wangin Beijing

Published: 2:24pm, 4 Feb 2024

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A leading Chinese nuclear fuel engineer has been placed under investigation, becoming the latest case in Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on corruption in “high-risk” areas such as energy and state-owned enterprises.

Li Guangchang, a member of the science and technology committee of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is suspected of committing serious violations of discipline and law, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement on its website.

He is undergoing disciplinary inspection and supervision, the ruling Communist Party’s top corruption watchdog said, but did not offer details of the alleged violations.

Li is a former director of the nuclear fuel division of CNNC, a state-owned enterprise that oversees China’s civilian and military nuclear programmes.

He also played a key role in the innovation and development of China’s hi-performance “CF series” fuel assemblies, according to publicly available information.

Domestic development of nuclear fuel assemblies is essential for “realising the dream of a strong nuclear power country” and exporting China-made nuclear power, Li said in a report in 2017, when he was chief of key science and technology projects under the CF programme.

The following year, as a deputy director of CNCC’s science and technology committee, Li took part in drafting the “China Nuclear Energy Development Report”. Last April, he participated in an atomic energy research conference as a senior consultant to the committee, according to Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper.

The investigation into Li Guangchang comes less than a month after President Xi Jinping’s call for the CCDI to focus on corruption in “high-risk” areas. Photo: Handout

CNNC is mainly engaged in research and development, construction, production and operation in the fields of nuclear power, fuel cycle and applications, environmental protection and nuclear engineering, according to its website.

The investigation into Li comes less than a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered the country’s anti-corruption forces to focus on “high-risk areas” including state-owned businesses, energy and finance.

Xi’s call to deepen the clean-up drive came as he warned that the battle against corruption remained “severe and complex”. There should be “absolutely no mercy” in rooting out the problem, he told the CCDI’s third plenary session on January 8.

Li’s case follows a series of crackdowns in China’s military-industrial sector that has targeted senior executives, such as in aerospace-defence enterprises.

In December, three senior aerospace-defence executives were stripped of their titles as members of the top national political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

They are Wu Yansheng, chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; Liu Shiquan, chairman of the board of China North Industries Group Corporation, or Norinco Group; and Wang Changqing, deputy manager of state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.

Last week, state media reported that prominent rocket scientist Wang Xiaojun would also be expelled from the CPPCC, as Beijing continues its corruption investigation into leaders of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, a key component of China’s nuclear arsenal and deterrence power.