On January 13th, Zhao Jianhua, former Chairman of Shanghai Electric, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
According to a notification from the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court on January 13th, Zheng Jianhua, former Secretary of the Communist Party Committee and Chairman of Shanghai Electric (Group) Corporation, was convicted in the first instance of bribery, corruption, embezzlement of public funds, and abuse of power in state-owned companies. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
It was reported that Zhao Jianhua had used his position between 2003 and 2021 to provide assistance to others, soliciting or illegally accepting property worth over 156 million yuan in total, and misappropriating public funds for loans to others, with over 700 million yuan yet to be returned.
Public records show that 66-year-old Zheng Jianhua is from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. He started working in the Shanghai Electric system in 1983, rising from Vice General Manager of Shanghai Electrical Machinery Plant to President of Shanghai Electric Power Generation Group, and then to Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Shanghai Electric Group, steadily climbing the ranks. He was officially investigated in July 2021 and expelled from the Party in July 2021.
Shanghai Electric is a large state-owned enterprise in Shanghai, specializing in comprehensive equipment manufacturing, with main business areas covering energy equipment, industrial equipment, and integrated services.
Before Zheng Jianhua was investigated in 2021, at the end of May 2021, Shanghai Electric suddenly announced that its holding subsidiary, Shanghai Electric Communication Technology Co., Ltd., had widespread overdue receivables, with a risk of not being able to recover up to 8.672 billion yuan in accounts receivable.
This crisis led to a loss of 9.988 billion yuan for Shanghai Electric in 2021. Subsequently, Shanghai Electric and its subsidiaries’ management faced a “major earthquake.”
In addition to Chairman Zheng Jianhua being investigated, on the evening of August 5, 2021, CEO Huang Ou committed suicide by jumping off a building. In November of the same year, several former senior executives of the subsidiary Shangdian Communications were investigated, including former General Manager Shen Xin, former CFO Mao Limin, and former Marketing Director and Minister of Commerce Jin Hang.