The Gansu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Deputy Governor Cheng Xiaobo was officially announced today (August 14) to be under investigation, with the official report stating that he voluntarily surrendered. Cheng Xiaobo was a former subordinate of the current Vice Premier He Lifeng during his tenure at the National Development and Reform Commission of the CPC.
According to a report by CCTV News on August 14, Cheng Xiaobo is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law” and has voluntarily surrendered, currently undergoing investigation.
The last public appearance of Cheng Xiaobo was on May 18 and 19. According to the Gansu Daily, Cheng Xiaobo, who was then a member of the Provincial Committee and Deputy Governor, conducted a survey in Zhouqu County.
Reported by Caixin Online, Cheng Xiaobo has been out of the public eye for nearly three months since then.
On May 29, the Gansu Daily reported that the leadership team for the feedback and implementation of rectification work of the Gansu Provincial Committee held its fourth meeting in Lanzhou, with several provincial leaders in attendance, but Cheng Xiaobo was not seen.
Rumors about Cheng Xiaobo being taken away for investigation had already spread on overseas social media by late May.
Public records show that Cheng Xiaobo, born in October 1972 in Changzhi, Shanxi Province, entered the Office of the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources in 1994 as a clerk. By the end of 1996, he joined the former State Planning Commission and has been working at the National Development and Reform Commission (formerly the State Planning Commission) for over twenty years. In August 2014, he became the President and Party Secretary of the newspaper “China Reform Daily” under the NDRC. In December 2016, he was appointed Director and Party Secretary of the National Information Center. In 2019, he became the Deputy Secretary-General of the NDRC; and in April 2020, he was appointed Deputy Governor of Gansu Province.
According to the Beijing News, he was the youngest provincial leader in Gansu at that time.
Cheng Xiaobo was a former subordinate of the current Vice Premier He Lifeng at the National Development and Reform Commission.
He Lifeng became Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission of the CPC in June 2014, Chairman in February 2017. In October 2022 at the 20th CPC National Congress, he was elected as a member of the CPC Central Political Bureau, and in March the following year, he was appointed Vice Premier.
From June 2014 to April 2020, Cheng Xiaobo worked under He Lifeng.
Cheng Xiaobo is the second Deputy Governor of Gansu Province to be investigated recently. On March 17 this year, it was officially announced that the Deputy Governor of Gansu Province, Lei Siwei, was under investigation.