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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Top Chinese Security Official Is Investigated | Top Chinese Security Official Is Investigated |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| BEIJING — One of China’s top security officials is being investigated by the Communist Party for “suspected serious law and discipline violations,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency. | BEIJING — One of China’s top security officials is being investigated by the Communist Party for “suspected serious law and discipline violations,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency. |
| The report said the official, Li Dongsheng, a vice minister of public security, is the subject of an inquiry by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s internal anticorruption investigation agency. The Xinhua report, which appeared Friday, also said the agency had noted that Mr. Li was vice head of a leading group for the prevention and handling of cult-related issues. | |
| The Xinhua report was brief and did not give further details. | The Xinhua report was brief and did not give further details. |
| Mr. Li has ties to Zhou Yongkang, the former member of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee who oversaw the powerful domestic security apparatus from 2007 to 2012, according to several people with knowledge of party politics. The anticorruption agency recently opened a corruption investigation into Mr. Zhou, the first time since the Communist Party took control of China in 1949 that an official of such high stature has been the target of a formal anticorruption inquiry. | |
| For many months, investigators had been looking into the activities of officials linked to Mr. Zhou. Those officials include people in the security apparatus, at a state-owned oil company and in senior party and government posts in Sichuan Province. All are domains in which Mr. Zhou has worked and held sway. Mr. Zhou and his wife, Jia Xiaoye, have been held under a form of house arrest in their home in central Beijing. Mr. Zhou was also an ally of Bo Xilai, a former Politburo member, who was sentenced in September to life in prison. Party insiders say Mr. Bo’s spectacular fall last year helped fuel the actions taken against Mr. Zhou by other party leaders. | For many months, investigators had been looking into the activities of officials linked to Mr. Zhou. Those officials include people in the security apparatus, at a state-owned oil company and in senior party and government posts in Sichuan Province. All are domains in which Mr. Zhou has worked and held sway. Mr. Zhou and his wife, Jia Xiaoye, have been held under a form of house arrest in their home in central Beijing. Mr. Zhou was also an ally of Bo Xilai, a former Politburo member, who was sentenced in September to life in prison. Party insiders say Mr. Bo’s spectacular fall last year helped fuel the actions taken against Mr. Zhou by other party leaders. |
| Mr. Li, the subject of the latest investigation, has held his vice minister post since 2009, according to an official biographical outline. It was his first job in the security apparatus. Before that, he served in various party propaganda posts and worked at China Central Television, the state network. He graduated in 1978 from Fudan University in Shanghai after studying journalism and is from Shandong Province in eastern China. | Mr. Li, the subject of the latest investigation, has held his vice minister post since 2009, according to an official biographical outline. It was his first job in the security apparatus. Before that, he served in various party propaganda posts and worked at China Central Television, the state network. He graduated in 1978 from Fudan University in Shanghai after studying journalism and is from Shandong Province in eastern China. |
| The investigation into Mr. Li will not necessarily result in a criminal charge. If the anticorruption agency finds that Mr. Li has violated party discipline, he can be punished internally by the party. But the case can also be handed to the courts and prosecutors, and that could lead to a criminal charge and a trial, which is what happened with Mr. Bo. | |
| The party chief and Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has been promoting an anticorruption campaign since he took power in November 2012. Mr. Xi has asserted that he will go after “flies and tigers,” meaning low-ranking officials as well as people in the top tiers of the party hierarchy. Some analysts are asking whether Mr. Xi’s carrying out of investigations into Mr. Zhou and other senior officials is motivated more by a sincere effort to root out corruption or by a desire to consolidate power and weaken rival factions inside the party. | |
| Richard McGregor, the author of “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers,” said on the Asia Society’s ChinaFile website recently that Mr. Xi was motivated more by power politics since corruption investigations had not been opened into other party leaders whose family members had amassed enormous wealth. | Richard McGregor, the author of “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers,” said on the Asia Society’s ChinaFile website recently that Mr. Xi was motivated more by power politics since corruption investigations had not been opened into other party leaders whose family members had amassed enormous wealth. |
| “So while we shouldn’t shed any tears for Zhou Yongkang — it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, as the saying goes — let’s equally not pretend Xi is ushering in a new era of fearless prosecution of graft,” he said. | “So while we shouldn’t shed any tears for Zhou Yongkang — it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, as the saying goes — let’s equally not pretend Xi is ushering in a new era of fearless prosecution of graft,” he said. |