Two Chinese Investigative Journalists Detained for Exposing Local Officials’ Corruption

Global press freedom has fallen to its lowest point in over two decades, with China ranked third from the bottom. (Screenshot from Reporters Without Borders website)

[People News] While the CCP regime continues its high-level anti-corruption campaign, two independent journalists have been detained by police in Chengdu, Sichuan, after publishing a report alleging that officials in Pujiang County, Sichuan, improperly seized corporate assets. The incident highlights the further tightening of China’s media environment.

According to information released by the rights advocacy website Weiquanwang, well-known independent investigative journalist Liu Hu and self-media commentator Wu Yingjiao were taken away for investigation by local police after publishing a report in Sichuan accusing Pujiang County Party Secretary Pu Fayou of illegally appropriating company assets. On February 2, the Jinjiang District branch of the Chengdu Public Security Bureau announced that the two had been placed under “criminal compulsory measures,” meaning they have been detained.

According to Voice of America, on January 29 Liu Hu and Wu Yingjiao published an article titled “The Sichuan County Party Secretary Who Once Drove a Professor to Death Now Pushes Investment Enterprises Toward Bankruptcy” on their jointly operated WeChat public account “Law and Sentiment.” The article was deleted by the WeChat platform shortly after publication.

After the investigative report was released and before Liu Hu was detained, he posted on WeChat a screenshot of a message from a staff member of the Chengdu Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. In the conversation, the official twice urged Liu to contact the commission directly and said complaints should go through official channels rather than be published in the media. Liu’s lawyer, Zhou Ze, said after a meeting that police mainly opened the case based on this article and claimed its content “damaged the image of the local government.” The lawyer noted that both individuals are currently being held at the Chengdu Detention Center and that legal procedures in the case are ongoing.

Aleksandra Bielakowska, Advocacy Manager for Asia-Pacific Affairs at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said the arrests underscore “the CCP’s restrictive and hostile stance toward independent reporting.”

Liu Hu was formerly a reporter for New Express Daily. In 2013, he was detained for 364 days on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “spreading rumors” over negative reporting involving Ma Zhengqi, former vice mayor of Chongqing and deputy director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, before being released on bail. In 2016, after losing his official media credentials, he continued working as an independent journalist, tracking corruption and judicial misconduct cases, including the case of Zhang Jiahui, vice president of the Hainan High Court, as well as multiple cases of private entrepreneurs detained due to local government abuse of power.

In recent years, the CCP’s regulation of independent investigative reporting has tightened significantly. Media workers frequently face warnings, summonses, or account suspensions, and internet platforms are required to conduct real-time censorship on politically and socially sensitive topics.

The case comes at a time when the CCP is carrying out large-scale anti-corruption crackdowns in official and military circles, with numerous provincial- and ministerial-level officials and senior military officers investigated in recent months for “serious violations of discipline and law.” However, although authorities continue to promote anti-corruption efforts, oversight power remains highly concentrated within the Party’s internal disciplinary system, while the space for media and independent investigators to participate in supervision continues to shrink.

In Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index, China ranked 178th out of 180 countries and was described as “the world’s largest jailer of journalists.”△