China’s corruption crackdown puts 5 SOEs and Shanghai state assets supervisor in investigation cross hairs

Bai Tinghui, head of agency that manages state-owned enterprises, is under probe for ‘serious violations’ of law and Communist Party discipline
Meanwhile, local disciplinary groups are investigating five bosses of state-owned companies in energy, shipbuilding, gas and electricity industries

Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign

Phoebe Zhang

Published: 6:30pm, 14 Sep 2023

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China continues to crack down on corruption in the state asset sector, with five state-owned enterprises and Shanghai’s top agency for supervising the central government’s state-owned assets in the cross hairs of new investigations.

Bai Tinghui, party secretary and director of the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, is currently under investigation for “serious violations of party discipline and the law”, the Shanghai Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision announced on Thursday.

Bai has headed the agency since his appointment in February 2019. The Henan province native has had a long career in the eastern megacity, previously working as a subway engineer, director of the Shanghai Railway Transit and the Shanghai Water Authority. In 2017, he became a member of the Communist Party’s Shanghai municipal committee.

Also on Thursday, state news agency Xinhua reported that five management-level staff at SOEs across China were under investigation by local disciplinary bureaus. The companies span industries including energy, shipbuilding, gas and electricity.

Another SOE boss targeted in the anti-graft crackdown was convicted this week. Wang Bin, former chairman and party chief of China Life Insurance, was given a suspended death sentence, which is likely to be commuted to life imprisonment after a two-year probationary period, for taking bribes and hiding overseas funds, Xinhua reported.

He was found to have abused his power and illegally gained 325 million yuan (US$44.66 million) from various financial institutions while changing savings into foreign currency, violating regulations for state company officials.

In recent months, China has tightened anti-corruption campaigns targeting fields such as the medical sector, sports and the military.

Official military paper PLA Daily told senior officers this week to investigate the day-to-day challenges of troops in what analysts said was part of a larger anti-corruption drive.

Last month, the head of China’s General Administration of Sport called for “strict management and supervision” to improve the quality of cadres after several leading Chinese sports officials were brought down in an anti-corruption campaign.

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China’s top graft-buster, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said it detained more than 140 SOE officials in corruption investigations in the first half of the year, while over 200 turned themselves in. The number of SOEs placed under investigation “increased significantly” compared with the same period last year, it said.

The corruption crackdown targeting SOEs was listed as a priority for the CCDI this year at a January meeting, where the firms were described as the “ballast” of the economy and critical to President Xi Jinping’s development agenda.

In March, the CCDI began inspections of 30 of the country’s biggest SOEs directly managed by the state, including the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, China National Petroleum Corporation and the China Three Gorges Corporation.