MCLC: Zhou Yongkang graft inquiry

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Zhou Yongkang graft inquiry
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (12/15/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/world/asia/china-presses-corruption-inqui
ry-of-powerful-former-security-official.html

China Focusing Graft Inquiry on Ex-Official
By JONATHAN ANSFIELD and CHRIS BUCKLEY

BEIJING — Sending tremors across China’s political landscape, President Xi
Jinping and other party leaders have authorized a corruption inquiry
against the powerful former head of the domestic security apparatus, Zhou
Yongkang, according to sources with elite political ties.

It is the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China
that an official who has held such high office has been the focus of a
formal corruption investigation, and in pressing his antigraft crusade to
new levels, Mr. Xi has broken a longstanding taboo. Mr. Zhou was once a
member of the Communist Party’s top rung of power, the Politburo Standing
Committee, and even retired members of that body have always been spared
such scrutiny.

The principal allegations against Mr. Zhou emerged from investigations
over the past year into accusations of abuse of power and corruption by
officials and oil company executives associated with him. Those inquiries
have already encircled his son, Zhou Bin, and other family members, the
sources said.

Mr. Xi and other leaders agreed by early December to put the elder Mr.
Zhou directly under formal investigation by the party’s commission for
rooting out corruption and abuses of power, the sources said. They said a
senior official went to Mr. Zhou’s home in central Beijing to inform him
about the inquiry, and Mr. Zhou and his wife, Jia Xiaoye, have since been
held under constant guard.

The people who gave the account were an official with a state broadcaster,
a former province-level party corruption investigator, a lawyer with
family connections to the party elite, a businesswoman with similar ties
and a businesswoman who is the granddaughter of a late leader. They all
spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the risk of recriminations for
discussing sensitive politics.

“It’s not like in the past few months, when he was being secretly
investigated and more softly restricted,” the lawyer said. “Now it’s
official.”

Mr. Xi has amassed imposing power since taking leadership of the party in
November 2012, and appears to be pressing the case to bolster his leverage
over possible challengers.

But even in retirement, Mr. Zhou is a potentially formidable adversary.

He occupied an extraordinary nexus of state-blessed money and power, even
by the standards of Chinese politics. Educated in oil-field exploration,
he spent much of his career in the state oil industry and wielded
considerable influence over the sector, which expanded rapidly at home and
abroad as demand for energy surged with China’s booming economy.

Later, while a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, he oversaw the
party’s sprawling security apparatus, with control over the police,
prosecutors, courts and the main intelligence service. During his watch,
the party leadership stressed “stability maintenance” as vital to its
survival, and the domestic security budget expanded to overshadow even the
military’s. Mr. Zhou’s grim, rough-hewed features added to his image as a
politician not to be trifled with.

In taking on Mr. Zhou, Mr. Xi could jeopardize elite unity if the case
falters or ignites dissension among party officials and elders, including
the retired president, Jiang Zemin, under whose tenure Mr. Zhou became a
minister for land and then a province party secretary.

“On the one hand, this would be such a dramatic change from previous
practice, and risks generating pushback,” said Christopher K. Johnson, an
expert on Chinese politics at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington. “On the other hand, this is a guy who likes to send
messages and who has been consistently defying longstanding regime rules
of physics now for some time.”

Until now, the highest-ranking politicians subjected to corruption
inquiries were serving members of the Politburo, a rung lower than the
Standing Committee in the party hierarchy. They included Bo Xilai, an ally
of Mr. Zhou’s who was sentenced to life in prison in September for
taking bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power.

It is not yet clear whether Mr. Zhou will be prosecuted and punished;
internal party inquiries do not necessarily end in criminal charges, even
when culpability is found. The government has not made any public
announcement about the case, nor has Mr. Zhou, who like other senior
Chinese politicians is inaccessible to reporters. The decision to
investigate Mr. Zhou was first reported by overseas Chinese news sites,
including Mingjing and Boxun, and later by Reuters.

After Mr. Xi took leadership of the Communist Party, he vowed to take on
corruption both low and high in party ranks — both “flies and tigers.”

Mr. Zhou, who turns 71 this month, is undoubtedly a tiger. But his power
and reputation for highhanded ruthlessness also brought critics, and he
appeared diminished after Mr. Bo was detained last year.

After Mr. Zhou retired in November 2012, his successor in charge of
domestic security was not given a place on the Standing Committee, a move
that party insiders said reflected disquiet in the elite over the
influence that the position had accumulated under Mr. Zhou.

Soon afterward, party anticorruption officials also began removing and
investigating a succession of officials and company executives who had
career links with Mr. Zhou. The first senior official to fall in these
investigations was Li Chuncheng, a deputy party chief of Sichuan Province,
where he had risen through the ranks while Mr. Zhou was party secretary
from 1999 to 2002.

In the following months, investigators from the Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection, the party agency responsible for investigating
major corruption cases, detained other officials and businessmen from
Sichuan. They also opened an investigation into current and former
executives of the China National Petroleum Corporation, where Mr. Zhou had
risen up the party hierarchy. In some cases, they had ties to Mr. Zhou’s
son, Zhou Bin, who has been questioned in the last months and was detained
in recent weeks, according to the sources close to leaders.

The older Mr. Zhou’s “real problem is the corruption claims involving his
wife and son,” said the former corruption investigator. “Zhou could also
be held responsible, even if he didn’t directly participate.”

The Zhou family’s sway within the oil sector could offer many potential
sources of illicit wealth, including acquiring rights to operate fields,
service contracts, equipment sales and distribution of oil, the former
corruption investigator said.

Other critics, including human rights advocates, have said that Mr. Zhou’s
influence over courts and law-and-order issues was also ripe for abuse.
But any inquiry there could be politically volatile, and there has been no
string of telltale detentions and investigations in that area that would
point to Mr. Zhou’s being targeted there.

So far, no formal criminal charges have been announced against any key
figures in the allegations. Party discipline investigations can be more
wide-ranging than police investigations, and the results need not be made
public.

The sources said Mr. Zhou was under investigation by a special unit of the
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Senior police officers were
also helping, they said. Usually in China, criminal charges against senior
officials are considered only after a party inquiry has recommended legal
action.

“They’ve handpicked a number of officials in Beijing to take charge of the
case, in order to keep firm control over it,” said the businesswoman who
is the granddaughter of a late party leader.

Jonathan Ansfield reported from Beijing, and Chris Buckley from Hong Kong