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bleucheese
Veejay
Joined: Aug 01, 2003
Posts: 1993
Location: this side of the tracks
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 Posted:
Sep 25, 2006 - 02:29 PM |
 
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| Post subject: party boss of shanghai arrested for corruption |
Shanghai Party Boss Held for Corruption
BEIJING, Monday, Sept. 25 — Chinese security officers have detained the powerful party boss of Shanghai for corruption, as President Hu Jintao expands a crackdown on graft that has focused on prominent political opponents.
Chen Liangyu, the Communist Party’s top official in the wealthy East Coast enclave and a member of the ruling Politburo, was formally detained on Sunday afternoon, Chinese state media confirmed Monday afternoon.
It is exceedingly rare in China for members of the ruling Politburo to face legal trouble, even when the authorities have evidence of corrupt activities by them or people close to them. Mr. Hu almost certainly would not have approved of the action unless he considered Mr. Chen an obstacle to his political control or his policy agenda.
The action seems intended mainly to reduce local resistance to edicts by Mr. Hu and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, while also smashing the remnants of the political clique that had been tied more closely to Jiang Zemin, China’s former paramount leader, than to Mr. Hu.
Mr. Hu is seeking to reshuffle the members of the Politburo and all the leading government and provincial posts at the 17th Party Congress to be held next year. He has sought to extinguish opposition to his priorities among senior party members ahead of that event and to anoint his own successor.
Mr. Chen’s political machine has long been considered one of the strongest and most corrupt in a country where the powerful find ways to claim a big share of the country prosperity, despite almost constant anti-corruption campaigns within the ruling party.
As Shanghai party boss, Mr. Chen enjoyed considerable leeway to run China’s wealthiest urban region. Friends and relatives of Mr. Chen are suspected of using access to public funds,, including Shanghai’s pension fund, to enrich themselves, people informed about the investigation said. They said at least half a dozen other officials and many prominent local deal makers have also been arrested in recent weeks.
Mr. Chen, 60, inherited the political base of Mr. Jiang, who rose to prominence as Shanghai party boss in the 1980’s and subsequently promoted many of his cohorts to top national party and government posts. He was once seen as having the potential to join the Politburo Standing Committee and compete for China’s top political titles.
The so-called Shanghai faction did not operate like a cohesive political clique in recent years and failed to help Mr. Jiang himself retain his final post as military chief in 2004, when Mr. Hu forced him into retirement and consolidated his own power.
But Mr. Chen resisted central government demands to reduce speculative real estate investment and tamp down economic growth to prevent waste and overheating. He offered a prominent symbol of the strength of local party machines even in the face of heavy pressure from the Beijing leadership, so his downfall seems likely to signal Mr. Hu’s rising authority.
The last time a sitting Politburo member lost his post for corruption was in 1995, when Mr. Jiang, then China’s top leader, purged Chen Xitong, the Beijing party chief Mr. Jiang considered a formidable rival.
Chen Liangyu, who is not related to Chen Xitong, was detained under “double regulations,” a form of house arrest for members of the Communist Party suspected of wrongdoing. Such detentions do not necessary lead to legal charges, but after losing the confidence of the top leadership, Mr. Chen will almost certainly be stripped of his political posts.
His detention is a black mark for Shanghai, which China has built into a showcase market economy and financial center in an attempt to present its most sophisticated face to the outside world.
The ongoing investigation into corruption provided a glimpse into another side of the city’s stunning growth. Mr. Chen’s political machine controlled a great swathe of Shanghai’s economy, including prime portions of real estate and major infrastructure projects.
A huge investigation by the central government into corruption there focused on the misuse of pension funds to invest in building projects tied to local leaders and their business cohorts.
But Mr. Chen, his relatives and friends were also implicated in a major real estate scandal in 2003 that resulted in a short prison term for one well connected Shanghai businessman, Zhou Zhengyi, but did not focus on Mr. Chen or officials close to him directly. Issues related to that handling of that investigation were revived during the latest crackdown, people informed about the investigation said.
Mr. Hu’s corruption crackdown began last spring and picked up pace during the summer months. It has so far resulted in the arrests of lower-level officials and well-connected businessmen in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Fujian and other areas.
Most of the people implicated in the scandals are viewed as old loyalists of Mr. Jiang or members of the Politburo not considered among the core supporters of Mr. Hu, leading to suspicions that Mr. Hu has used the fight against corruption as a tool to eliminate opponents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/world/asia/25china.html?hp&ex=115924 3200&en=bba1c8ab212650a2&ei=5094&partner=homepage |
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shanghaiceltic
Board Royalty
Joined: Sep 20, 2005
Posts: 7617
Location: Perth WA
Status: Offline
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Sep 25, 2006 - 03:37 PM |
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This appeared in the Econmist on Sept 7th.
China
Looting the aged
Sep 7th 2006 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
A corruption scandal in Shanghai makes political mileage for Hu Jintao
EVEN if they were well managed, China's social-security funds would find themselves hugely in the red in a few years' time, as a bulge of retired workers start demanding pensions. But recent allegations of massive corruption in the management of Shanghai's fund, involving the illicit use of $400m, reveal just how much officials can worsen the problem.
For a city that is trying to promote itself as China's sophisticated financial capital, the scandal is a serious blow. For President Hu Jintao, eager to display his authority in the run-up to an important Communist Party conclave next year, it may be beneficial. In his handling of the allegations, he has shown a willingness to crack down on waywardness in the provinces, which have been frustrating the central leadership's efforts to rein in the economy. As a particularly powerful enclave, which enjoys the status of a province, and is reputed—though evidence for this is debatable—to be a bastion of Mr Hu's political rivals, Shanghai was a perfect case for Mr Hu to act upon. More than 100 officials have been dispatched from Beijing to investigate the alleged graft, according to the government news agency, Xinhua.
China's official media have described it as Shanghai's biggest financial scandal in many years. It allegedly involves the misappropriation of one-third of the city's $1.2 billion social-security fund. Since the scandal was uncovered in July, the director of Shanghai's Municipal Labour and Social Security Bureau, Zhu Junyi, and a district government chief, Qin Yu, have been sacked. Mr Qin happens to be a former top aide of the city's party chief, Chen Liangyu, who is also a member of the ruling Politburo. Several prominent people in the business world are being questioned. On September 5th Chinese media said Wu Minglie, the chairman of one of Shanghai's biggest property developers, New Huangpu Group, had been detained.
According to Chinese press reports, the fund lent money that was used to invest in risky toll-road and real-estate projects. In theory, social-security funds should mainly be invested in treasury bonds and bank deposits, which yield very low returns. The government has been cautious about allowing funds to be put into stocks because China's capital markets are still rather rough and ready. It also fears that any loosening of controls could encourage abuses by local officials. But a lack of transparency in the management of funds, combined with pressures to make up pension deficits, still result in frequent wrongdoing. Xinhua quoted an official as saying that 16 billion yuan ($2 billion) had been embezzled from the funds since 1998.
Shanghai's case is the latest in a series of big corruption stories reported by the Chinese media in recent weeks. A deputy mayor of Beijing, a chief prosecutor in nearby Tianjin, a deputy commander of the navy and a deputy governor are among those who have been arrested. But the scandal in Shanghai has aroused particular attention because of widespread public concerns about meagre pensions and unemployment benefits as well as the fast-rising cost of health care. A commentary on one official newspaper website spoke of a “crisis of confidence” in the social-security system generated by the Shanghai case. The famous words of Lord Acton, a 19th-century historian, were quoted in another: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The Chinese media say government auditors are now examining accounts at social-security departments across the country. Such checks are conducted regularly, but this time they are being carried out by officials from other regions, in an apparent effort to minimise the possibility of cover-ups. |
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I have parrallel bars at home, one for gin and one for whiskey |
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MrBeijingles
Talker
Joined: July 28, 2006
Posts: 106
Status: Offline
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Sep 25, 2006 - 04:55 PM |
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Par for the course, I'm afraid. |
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frenchlover1999
Shanghai Royalty
Joined: Sep 18, 2004
Posts: 8730
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Sep 25, 2006 - 06:01 PM |
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AH!!!! SEE MY THREAD IN THE PIT (50,000 HISTORY)!!! AGAIN THE FRENCHLOVER WAS RIGHT!!!! Michael, I am waiting for your apologies for pitting my thread. |
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That was no shark. That was my personal submarine. But enough of this polite conversation. What is the purpose of your visit? |
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