‘Dismissal dress’ love affair scandal takes down state-owned oil company boss who is expelled from Communist Party and removed from public office
- Month-long investigation into illicit affair ends in oil company official being stripped of party membership and removed from all posts
- Woman at centre of ‘dismissal dress-gate’ scandal has contract with state-owned firm terminated
A Chinese official at the centre of the “dismissal dress-gate” scandal has been expelled from the Communist Party of China and removed from all his posts after a month-long investigation.
The scandal began to unfold last month when the now former general manager of an oil company subsidiary was seen walking hand-in-hand with a mysterious woman, who was neither his wife nor daughter, in a busy shopping area of Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province.
A video clip of the pair, taken by a street fashion videographer who posted it on his Douyin account, caught fire on mainland social media when the man was identified as oil company executive, Hu Jiyong.
The woman he was with, surnamed Dong, turned out to be a subordinate at the company.
Such was the viral nature of the video, the pink silk dress Dong was wearing in it topped the search list of China’s e-commerce platform Taobao, with more than 12 million people checking the item, which came to be known as the “dismissal dress”.
More than 4,000 people purchased the garment on the e-commerce platform which is owned by Alibaba, the owner of the South China Morning Post.
On July 7, the Beijing-based company Hu had worked for, Huanqiu Project Management, under the state-owned oil giant China Petroleum Engineering Corporation, announced on its official WeChat account that it had sacked Hu for having an extramarital affair with a subordinate, violating party principles.
The company has also terminated its contract with Dong.
The announcement, which followed a “comprehensive and thorough” investigation that began on June 7, indicated that it revealed evidence of extramarital misconduct by 54-year-old Hu.
It also said that he had violated integrity discipline by switching plans for an official business trip to personal travel instead.
Screen captures of Dong’s alleged account on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, which had been scrubbed clean amid the scandal, revealed an inclination to flaunt a wealthy lifestyle, leading online users to speculate if Dong and Hu were involved in corruption.
However, the company announcement denied that the affair involved corruption, adding that the internal investigation found no other violations by the pair.
The Post has reached out to Huanqiu Project Management for further comment.
The announcement also said that party discipline would continue to be enforced and corruption tackled, adding that there was “zero tolerance” for immoral behaviour and discipline violations.
The expulsion from both the Communist Party and his posts means that Hu was slapped with shuangkai, or “double expulsion”, the most severe punishment a party member can receive in China without being sent to prison.
Once a person is expelled from the Communist Party, they cannot rejoin for at least five years.
In China, being expelled from such posts also means losing one’s “iron rice bowl”, a reference to the political privileges and welfare benefits that high-ranking civil servants enjoy.
While corruption has been the most common reason cited for the double expulsions of Chinese officials since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, serious negligence of duty and unethical behaviour, such as extramarital affairs, have also led to such punishments.
