Zhou Yongkang the next corrupt ex-official to fall: HK media

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-08-11

Zhou Yongkang greets PLA officers in southwestern China's Yunnan
province in October 2012. (Photo/Xinhua)

Retired Communist Party heavyweight Zhou Yongkang could soon become the biggest name to be taken down for corruption since his close ally, disgraced former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, reports the Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily.

As the annual party leadership meeting at the Beidaihe resort in northern China's Hebei province gets underway, attention has turned to Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee and the former chief of the Central Political and Legislative Committee, China's top legal and political affairs body.

Rumors concerning Zhou have spiraled on the internet ever since his confidant, Bo Xilai, was sacked as Chongqing party chief last March. The 64-year-old Bo, once destined for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee himself, has been in custody for more than a year and is set to stand trial for taking bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power in Jinan, the capital of east China's Shandong province. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was handed a suspended death sentence last year for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.

Though Zhou, 70, managed to step down from his party posts without incident at the National Congress last November, allegations of corruption against him have persisted, with some political observers suggesting that the end is nigh for the man who was once one of China's most powerful leaders.

Since December last year, China's anti-corruption authorities in Sichuan, where Zhou ruled as party chief between 1999 and 2002, detained at least 10 entrepreneurs. Around the same time, the Sichuan provincial government and Chengdu municipal government also dismissed a group of party cadres for disciplinary violations.

A number of the sacked officials in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, were said to be under investigation for ties to Li Chuncheng, the deputy party chief of Sichuan removed from power at the end of last year for alleged corruption.

Since Zhou's retirement there have also been a number of high profile investigations into officials linked to him including the aforementioned Li Chuncheng, former Hubei politics and law committee secretary Wu Yongwen, and Sichuan literary federation chairman Guo Yongxiang, Zhou's secretary for 18 years.

On the evening of Aug. 2, Sichuan businessman Wu Bing was captured by authorities while on the run in Beijing. Wu is said to be a close confidant of Zhou Bin, Zhou Yongkang's son, and is rumored to be in charge of handling the Zhou family fortune, estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

Sources added that Zhou Bin left the country for Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia during the National Congress last November and the two meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March, the most sensitive times on the Chinese political calendar. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Political observers believe if Zhou were to be taken down for corruption it would be related to activities in China's petrol industry, where he spent most of his career, as well as his time in Sichuan and tenure as head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee between 2007 and 2012.

According to Malaysia's Kwong Wah Daily, Zhou Bin used his father's influence to rake in a fortune through business deals with companies and departments where his father used to work. Zhou Bin resold government land, interfered in oil project tenders, bribed officials, collected protection money, and buried court cases against businessmen for cash, Kwong Wah Daily said, adding that he holds assets in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu province, Hong Kong, Paris, the United States and Switzerland.

A confidential 2009 American diplomatic cable made public by controversial whistleblowing website Wikileaks also revealed that it is the belief of the US government that a small group of individuals headed by Zhou Yongkang and his son control the interests of China's oil indistry.

Another potential charge against Zhou Yongkang is abuse of power. According to reports, during his reign as Central Political and Legislative Committee chief, Zhou continually sought to expand the body's power by unifying the management of public security in the country and resorting to unreasonable tactics and violence to control the masses.

In addition, Zhou has been accused of debauchery and extravagance, as well as personnel oversights. If the rumors of his imminent downfall turn out to be true, Zhou would become the first former Politburo Standing Committtee member to be charged, breaking a long-held belief that committee members are immune from prosecution.

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