Top Chinese Official Is Ousted From Communist Party
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Version 0 of 1. BEIJING — A top aide to China’s former president Hu Jintao who will face prosecution on corruption charges has been expelled from the Communist Party and removed from public office, Chinese state news media reported on Monday. The charges against the official, Ling Jihua, 58, are the result of an internal investigation begun last December by the party’s Politburo, which found evidence that he took bribes, committed adultery and improperly hoarded a large amount of state and party “core secrets,” according to a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency. The decision to prosecute Mr. Ling, who once held a position akin to that of White House chief of staff under Mr. Hu, is the latest move by Mr. Hu’s successor, President Xi Jinping, as he seeks to scour the party of official corruption while purging his political rivals, experts say. “This is absolutely about rooting out the people Xi perceives as working against him,” said Joseph Fewsmith, a professor at Boston University who specializes in politics among China’s elite. Mr. Ling’s spectacularly lurid downfall began in 2012 when he was demoted following reports that his son had been killed in a high-speed crash driving a Ferrari on a Beijing road. Two female passengers were injured in the accident, and one of them later died. According to party officials, Mr. Ling went to great lengths to cover up the crash, with the families of both women paid enormous amounts of hush money. The scandal was a major blow to the political rise of Mr. Ling, who instead of being appointed to the Politburo was removed from his positions as director of the party’s Central Committee General Office and as Mr. Hu’s personal secretary. He was given a far smaller post as head of the United Front Work Department, the agency that manages the party’s dealings with China’s ethnic minorities. Yet even as Mr. Ling’s name continued to appear as head of that agency, a series of investigations that dug deeper into the activities of his relatives and associates spelled impending political doom. The steady, tightening scrutiny was almost identical to the methods used by Mr. Xi to topple other high-ranking officials, including Bo Xilai, a former Politburo member now serving life in prison on corruption charges and Zhou Yongkang, the former domestic security chief and retired member of the Politburo standing committee who was sentenced to life in prison last month. Both were accused of conspiring directly against Mr. Xi. Although the party has not explicitly accused Mr. Ling of seeking to undermine Mr. Xi, his expulsion from the party, along with the charges against him — bribery and sexual misconduct — are similar to the type of punishments levied against the president’s biggest rivals. “He took advantage of his posts to seek profit for others and accepted huge bribes personally and through his family,” said the Xinhua report, which sought to frame his crimes as antithetical to the party’s moral and political standing. “Ling’s behavior is a complete deviation from the party’s tenets. He has severely violated party rules, and brought huge damage to the party’s image,” it said. |