Before former member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo, Ma Xingrui, was taken down, another official from his hometown of Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province, Yu Shijun also fell. There are reports that Yu Shijun, former leader and former secretary of the Shuangyashan City Committee, Sun Zhe, is implicated in the Ma Xingrui case.
Ma Xingrui was removed from the position of Party Secretary of Xinjiang in July 2025. Prior to this, two senior officials from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection were successively parachuted in as the secretary and deputy secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection in March 2024 and April 2025. Subsequently, there was a major cleansing in the Heilongjiang Provincial government. Since May 2025, eight officials from Ma Xingrui’s hometown of Shuangyashan City have fallen.
On April 3, 2026, Ma Xingrui, a member of the CCP Politburo, was officially taken down; one week earlier, on March 27, 2026, the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection reported that Yu Shijun, the Deputy Secretary and Deputy Director of the Party Group of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shuangyashan City, as well as the Chairman of the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions, was suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and is under investigation.
Publicly available information shows that Yu Shijun, born in September 1968, has held various positions since December 2004, including Deputy Director of the Political Research Office of the Jiamusi City Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Jiamusi City Committee, Director of the Political Research Office of the City Committee, Director of the Office of the City Committee, and Secretary of the Qianjin District Committee of Jiamusi City. He served as the Secretary of the Jiexian County Committee of Shuangyashan City in Heilongjiang Province in October 2015 and became the Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shuangyashan City in January 2022.
Yu Shijun has been working in Shuangyashan City for over ten years since 2015, under the leadership of four mayors: Sun Zhe (April 2015 to January 2018), Song Hongwei (February 2018 to December 2020), Shao Guoqiang (December 2020 to January 2025), and Jiang Heqing (January 2025 to present). The city has also seen five mayors during this time period.
Among them, Sun Zhe currently serves as the Secretary and Director of the Party Group of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Harbin City. Sun Zhe held various positions in Jiamusi City from 2000 to 2013, including Deputy Mayor, Member of the Municipal Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Committee, and Mayor. Yu Shijun has served as Sun Zhe’s subordinate in both Jiamusi City and Shuangyashan City.
Shao Guoqiang currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Song Hongwei, after stepping down as Secretary of the Shuangyashan City Committee, became the Secretary-General and Party Group Member of the Heilongjiang Provincial People’s Congress, as well as the Director of the Office and the head of the General Office, before resigning in January 2023. Li Yugang currently serves as the Deputy Director and Party Group Member of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region People’s Congress. Zheng Daguang currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Finance and Economic Committee of the Heilongjiang Provincial People’s Congress. Zhao Rongguo currently serves as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Heilongjiang Provincial Government (at the bureau level).
A commentator who has been revealing the movements of the top CCP leadership, Jiang Wangzhen, leaked on December 16, 2025, that “Sun Zhe, Secretary and Director of the Party Group of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Harbin City, is under investigation in connection with the cases of Ma Xingrui, Rong Li, and Ma Xingquan; currently in the questioning stage.”
On the same day, Jiang Wangzhen also revealed, “The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has requested that Shao Guoqiang, Vice Chairman of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and Song Hongwei, former Secretary-General of the Heilongjiang Provincial People’s Congress, voluntarily disclose their connections with Ma Xingrui, his spouse Rong Li, and his brother Ma Xingquan, as well as whether there was any bribery, and reopened the investigation into the former Deputy Secretary-General of the Provincial Committee of Heilongjiang Province, Wu Fengcheng, especially regarding Ma Xingrui.”
Wu Fengcheng, a native of Baoqing County under Shuangyashan City, served as Member of the Standing Committee, Secretary-General, Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, Deputy Mayor, Deputy Secretary, Mayor, and Secretary of the Committee of the Shuangyashan City Committee from January 2001 to March 2015. In May 2019, he fell from his position as Vice Chairman of the Agriculture and Forestry Committee of the People’s Congress of Heilongjiang Province.
In early July 2025, Ma Xingrui was unusually removed from the Party Secretary position in Xinjiang. Prior to this, Luo Liping, a senior official of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, was parachuted in as the Deputy Secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection in April 2025 and also served as the Deputy Director of the Provincial Supervision Committee in May 2025.
Luo Liping, a native of Longhui, Hunan, born in February 1977, a PhD student at the University of Political Science and Law of China, previously served as Director of the Central Inspection Office, Deputy Director of the Central Inspection Office, and a Level One Inspector.
Commentator Jiang Wangzhen revealed on November 20, 2025, that in September 2025, Luo Liping, the Deputy Secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, led a team to raid the home of Ma Xingquan, Ma Xingrui’s younger brother. Ma Xingquan owns at least four properties in Shuangyashan (two), Harbin, and Beijing. The cash seized from these houses alone amounted to three billion yuan; however, cash was only a part of his total assets.
Before Luo Liping, senior official of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Bian Xuewen was parachuted in to Heilongjiang Province on March 18, 2024. Bian Xuewen, a Tianjin native born in December 1972, previously served as Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the Second Branch of the Tianjin Procuratorate, Deputy Director of the First Branch of the Tianjin Procuratorate, and Deputy Director of the Tianjin Procuratorate; he handled cases involving former member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee Zhou Yongkang and former Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee Chen Liangyu.
Bian Xuewen was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection in May 2017 and served as the Director of the National Supervisory Committee for Case Handling of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervision Commission in June 2020, rising to the rank of Deputy Minister.
Following the back-to-back parachuting of senior officials Bian Xuewen and Luo Liping from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a cleansing storm has swept through the Heilongjiang political scene. According to the official website of the Heilongjiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, more than 60 officials have been investigated in Heilongjiang Province from May 2025 to April 3, 2026.
Among them, eight officials from Shuangyashan City were investigated, including Yu Shijun, Deputy Secretary and Deputy Director of the Party Group of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shuangyashan City (March 27, 2026), Zhao Hong, former director of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Shuangyashan City (December 30, 2025), He Huizhong, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Statistical Bureau of Shuangyashan City (September 5, 2025), Wang Zhishan, former Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shuangyashan City (August 11, 2025), Ma Weixian, former Deputy Secretary-General of the Shuangyashan City Government (June 9, 2025), Han Lihua, former first-class researcher of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Shuangyashan City (June 9, 2025), Li Rongjiu, former first-class researcher of the Transportation Bureau of Shuangyashan City (May 22, 2025), and Gai Huanyou, former party group member of the Development and Reform Commission of Shuangyashan City and former director of the Basic Infrastructure Project Service Center (May 8, 2025).
According to public records, Ma Xingrui’s ancestral home is Yuncheng County in Heze City, Shandong Province. He was born in October 1959 into a family of coal miners in Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province. Ma Xingrui’s father and two older brothers worked in the coal mining bureau of Shuangyashan.
Shuangyashan is an important industrial area in China known for coal, electricity, and iron ore production, and is the only city in Heilongjiang Province with large coalfields, granaries, forests, wetlands, and farms.
After Ma Xingrui’s downfall, the Hong Kong newspaper “Ming Pao” reported on April 6, 2026, that Shuangyashan is a small border town near Russia, thousands of miles away from Southern China, but has been particularly close in recent years. Bosses from Shenzhen enterprises, such as Qianhai X X Financial Holdings Group (Qianhai Zhifu Financial Holdings), and Baohua Group (Shenzhen Baoneng Investment Group), have visited Shuangyashan, donating millions of dollars and seeking strategic cooperation. During the epidemic, these enterprises frequently donated medical masks and other epidemic prevention materials to Shuangyashan.
The report mentioned that in terms of donations, the central coordinator was the “philanthropic entrepreneur” Ma Xingquan. Ma Xingquan, a member of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Shuangyashan City and Chairman of Beijing Zhanying Xingye Information Technology Co., Ltd., is engaged in real estate, coal, municipal services, labor services, construction projects, and other industries locally. It is said that Ma Xingquan is Ma Xingrui’s younger brother, referred to as “the fifth brother.” Ma Xingrui’s wife, Rong X, was his college classmate and is reportedly active in the business community. If Ma Xingrui’s crimes include “family-style corruption” in the future, it would not be surprising.