Former China Telecom boss Chang Xiaobing sentenced to six years for corruption

China Telecom’s former chairman Chang Xiaobing was sentenced to six years imprisonment and fined 500,000 yuan (US$73,330) over corruption charges on Wednesday.

The sentence was handed down by the Baoding Intermediate People’s Court, in north China’s Hebei province.

Chang helmed China Telecom for only four months before he was placed under investigated on December 27, 2015 on suspicion of violating party disciple by the Communist Party’s anti-graft body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Chang was previously chairman and chief executive of China Unicom, a company which he had worked for 14 years, before swapping jobs with Wang Xiaochu, then chairman of China Telecom, as part of a reshuffle at the top of China’s telecom sector.

Between 1998 and 2014, Chang took advantage of his positions to seek benefits and accepted money and valuables worth more than 3.76 million yuan, according to prosecutors at Baoding Intermediate People’s Court.

Chang pleaded guilty to taking bribes and returned all of his illegal gains, according to a report by the state-owned People’s Daily.

Chang also expressed regret and disclosed information about the crimes committed by others, the report said.

Former China Unicom chairman Chang Xiaobing ‘sold state asset at fraction of its price to benefit disgraced general Guo Boxiong’

Chang resigned from his post at China Unicom with effect from December 30, 2015. The following year he was expelled from the Communist Party.

At the time of his detention Chang was said to have sold a state-owned office building in Beijing for 800 million yuan (HK$927 million) below the market price to benefit the family of disgraced former Central Military Commission vice-chairman Guo Boxiong, according to a letter by a mainland credit assessment company.