Guangxi official tied to disgraced aide of former Chinese president: media reports

A senior official in Guangxi province under investigation for graft has been tied to disgraced former presidential aide Ling Jihua and his wife, according to two major mainland news outlets.

Local businessmen close to Yu Yuanhui, the Communist Party boss of Nanning, paid Ling tens of millions of yuan to promote him earlier in his career, financial news magazine Caijing reported this week, quoting a source with knowledge of the matter.

National anti-graft authorities announced in May that Yu was under investigation, and six days later his personal driver drowned himself in a river, intensifying interest in the case. Yu was once secretary to public security chief Guo Shengkun when he was the party's top man in Guangxi. Ling was right-hand man to former president Hu Jintao but sidelined after his son died in a Ferrari crash in Beijing in 2012.

According to Caijing, the connection between the two fallen officials dates to 2006, when Yu took up the post of mayor of Wuzhou , and Ling was director of the party's influential General Office of the Central Committee. It was during this time the businessmen made the alleged payments to Ling.

Yu quickly went on to receive key appointments. In 2007, he was made an alternate member of the committee, an extraordinary boost in political status for such a junior bureaucrat.

He climbed higher, and the following year was made Wuzhou party chief and a member of Guangxi's elite party Standing Committee. He was then appointed secretary to Guo.