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Xinhua, Commerce Ministry targeted in new graft probe

In its latests round of corruption investigations the government in Beijing is targeting Xinhua new agency and the Commerce Ministry among others

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Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Secretary Wang Qishan. Photo: Reuters

The central government has sent investigators to six more provinces and four government departments, including Xinhua news agency and the Commerce Ministry, the ruling Communist Party’s corruption watchdog said on Monday, in the latest move to tackle graft.

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The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) has also dispatched inspectors to the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong, coal-rich Shanxi province, the southwestern province of Yunnan, the Ministry of Land and Resources, and the state-owned Three Gorges Corporation power company, the watchdog said in a statement on its website.

The first round of investigations began in May and the government issued preliminary findings in late September, though few details have seeped out to date.

“Wang Qishan has gained more support from other senior leaders, and this time it will be serious,”
Corruption expert Yuhua Wang

“My speculation is that this round will be harsher than the first,” said Yuhua Wang, a corruption expert and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“[CCDI secretary] Wang Qishan has gained more support from other senior leaders, and this time it will be serious,” he added, referring to the party’s anti-corruption chief.

Each inspection team has given out a contact number and set up a post office box so the public can tip them off.

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Since taking office in March, President Xi Jinping has called corruption a threat to the party’s survival and vowed to go after powerful “tigers” as well as lowly “flies”.

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