Another ally of jailed Chinese security chief Zhou Yongkang goes on trial on graft charges

The corruption trial of a former senior Chinese official allied with the country’s once powerful but disgraced security chief Zhou Yongkang began on Tuesday, state media said, the latest case in an ongoing anti-graft campaign.

President Xi Jinping has warned that rampant corruption threatens the survival of the ruling Communist Party and has waged a war on graft over the past three years that has felled scores of senior officials in the party, the government, the military and state-owned companies.

A court in the northeastern city of Tianjin opened the trial of former vice governor of the southern province of Hainan, Ji Wenlin, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Ji, whose criminal probe began as early as 2014, illicitly received more than 20.4 million yuan (HK$25 million) in assets and bribes between 2002 and 2013, Xinhua said.

“Prosecutors presented relevant evidence, the defendant Ji Wenlin and his defenders examined the evidence, and both sides fully issued opinions,” the news agency said.