【People News】While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its so-called "tiger hunting" anti-corruption campaign, corruption remains rampant across all levels of government. Recently, in just two days, the CCP dealt with several "tigers" (high-ranking officials) and "flies" (lower-level officials). Among them, Li Quan, former Party Secretary and Chairman of New China Life Insurance Company, was arrested; Jiang Jie, former Vice Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, was sentenced to death for bribery; and Xiao Longxu, former Chief Engineer of the Rocket Force Equipment Research Institute, was stripped of his membership in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

According to a report from the Supreme People's Procuratorate on October 12, the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate charged Li Quan with embezzlement and bribery, accusing him of blatantly abusing his position in the financial sector for personal gain. He was found guilty of trading power for money, embezzling public assets, and resisting internal party investigations. Li has been expelled from the Party, stripped of his privileges, and had his illegal gains confiscated.

With Li’s arrest, New China Life has now seen three chairmen fall from grace. Before him, former Chairman Guan Guoliang was sentenced to six years in prison in 2012, and Li’s predecessor, Wan Feng, was sentenced to six years and six months in December 2023.

New China Life, founded in September 1996, is a state-controlled, publicly listed insurance company, one of China’s Fortune 500 companies. It has approximately 1,770 branches across China, with major shareholders including Central Huijin Investment Ltd.

On the same day, the Tianjin No. 1 Intermediate People's Court publicly sentenced Jiang Jie, former Vice Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to death with a two-year reprieve for bribery. He was also ordered to forfeit all his personal assets.

The court stated that between 2000 and 2023, Jiang Jie had illegally accepted bribes totaling 225 million yuan (about $31 million). Now 59, Jiang held various posts in his native Shandong Province before becoming Vice Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2013 and later Vice Chairman of the Tibet CPPCC in December 2021. He was removed from office in July 2023, arrested in January 2024, and tried in Tianjin in July.

According to reports, Jiang Jie was also involved in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners during his tenures in Shandong and Tibet, acting on behalf of the CCP’s Jiang Zemin faction.

Each time a corrupt official falls, the bribes they are exposed to have taken often amount to millions or billions of yuan. Between January and April of this year, at least ten CCP officials involved in billion-yuan bribery cases were tried. He Zehua, former Deputy Director of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, accepted bribes totaling 943 million yuan, and Fan Yifei, former Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, took 386 million yuan in bribes.

Despite Guizhou being one of China’s poorest provinces, it has seen at least seven corrupt officials involved in billion-yuan bribery cases in recent years. Since January 2024, four such officials have been tried. Among them, former Guizhou Party Secretary Sun Zhigang was found guilty of accepting bribes totaling over 813 million yuan, and former Chairman of the Guizhou CPPCC, Wang Fuyu, took 450 million yuan in bribes.

Additionally, corruption within the Rocket Force continues to surface. On October 11, the ninth meeting of the 14th Standing Committee of the CPPCC concluded in Beijing, during which Xiao Longxu, former Chief Engineer of the Rocket Force Equipment Research Institute, was stripped of his CPPCC membership. At the same time, the meeting accepted the resignation of Gong Liutang, Vice President of Beijing Technology and Business University, though the reasons for their dismissal were not disclosed.

Xiao Longxu, 62, who had long been involved in missile development and engineering research and had received numerous awards for his scientific achievements, drew particular attention after losing his CPPCC membership. Since 2023, the Rocket Force has been at the center of Xi Jinping's military anti-corruption efforts. The former Rocket Force Commander, Li Yuchao, and former Political Commissar Xu Zhongbo were both dismissed, and several senior Rocket Force officers and defense industry leaders were stripped of their roles in the National People's Congress and CPPCC.

Before Xiao’s removal, at least eight other current or former high-ranking Rocket Force officials had been arrested. Analysts believe that the purge of Rocket Force leadership reduces the likelihood of the CCP pursuing major military actions in the near future.

Some political observers argue that the CCP’s crackdown on corruption is driven by its financial needs, with "anti-corruption economics" becoming one of its revenue sources. Seizing the assets of corrupt officials, often in the billions, has brought the Party financial rewards while also sending a warning to disloyal or disobedient officials. Over the past decade, the CCP has confiscated at least hundreds of billions of yuan in ill-gotten gains from corrupt officials. Though the CCP claims to represent the proletariat, it is estimated that 1% of its top officials control 99% of the nation's wealth, while 99% of the population holds only 1%. Party officials have become extraordinarily wealthy, yet the CCP still labels them as representatives of the proletariat. For example, despite the wealth of Wu Bangguo’s family, his obituary on October 8 described him as an "outstanding proletarian revolutionary."