Sun Bo, who led project to build China’s own aircraft carrier, will face court on corruption indictment
- Charge sheet says Sun was responsible for causing huge losses to the state
- Source claims accused could face death penalty if he compromised security
The former general manager of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, the company that developed and built the Type 001A, China’s first home-grown aircraft carrier, has been officially charged with corruption and abuse of power, state media reported on Friday.
Xinhua news agency reported that prosecutors in Shanghai completed their investigations into Sun Bo – who joined CSIC’s leadership in 2009 and became general manager of the shipbuilder four years ago – and turned his case over to Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People’s Court for trial.
“Through taking advantage of his position as a responsible official of a state-owned enterprise, [Sun] abused his power in the course of executing the company’s business activities and the state suffered huge losses as a result,” the report said.
The report did not reveal details of Sun’s alleged crimes, but sources familiar with the case said Sun could face the death penalty if convicted of passing on confidential information to foreign powers about the Liaoning, China’s first operational aircraft carrier which served as a template for the Type 001A, and other secrets.
An earlier statement released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s leading anti-graft body, made no mention of the Liaoning project in reporting the arrest and investigations into 57-year-old Sun, who was detained in June last year and later expelled from the Communist Party.
“A number of senior officials of CSIC were implicated in Sun’s case,” one source with knowledge of the case said.
“Investigations have found that Sun was approached by foreign agents several years before he was promoted to the helm of CSIC and put in charge of the Liaoning project.
“The authorities are holding some senior officials of CSIC accountable for promoting Sun to a leadership position in the company.”
After graduating from Dalian University of Technology, Sun rose through the ranks at Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company, a CSIC subsidiary. He was promoted to general manager in 2015, when Beijing formally announced it had started building the Type 001A.
“As [he was] the former No 2 leader of CSIC, leaders of the Central Military Commission were worried that Sun had passed data information about the Type 001A to foreign agents,” a source close to the PLA Navy said.
“If he did, then he could even face the death penalty, and investigations were into other senior managers as well.”
Sun is not the first senior manager of CSIC to find himself in trouble. The CCDI announced in December it had formally detained Jin Tao, 54, the former research head of the CSIC’s 712 Research Institute, after four months of investigation.
They said he had “seriously violated party discipline”, was “suspected of a crime of duty causing huge loss to the national interest” and faced other charges.
In September 2017, Liu Changhong, then head of discipline inspection at CSIC, was expelled from the party for taking bribes.
