Recently, the Deputy Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee and Mayor Hu Henghua, who has been conspicuously absent from important events, was officially announced to have fallen from power on March 20th. Since the downfall of Bo Xilai in Chongqing, high-ranking officials have frequently been removed from their positions, leading to the description of the Chongqing political scene as being under a “curse”.
According to official Chinese state media reports today, Hu Henghua, the Deputy Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee and Mayor, is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law”.
Public records show that Hu Henghua, 63 years old and a native of Hengyang, Hunan Province, had a long career in the Hengyang Steel Pipe Company before moving on to various governmental positions. He served as the General Manager of the company, Director of the Hunan Provincial Economic Commission, Deputy Secretary and Mayor of the Yiyang Municipal Committee of the CCP, Director of the Hunan Provincial Development and Reform Commission, Mayor of Changsha, Hunan Provincial Standing Committee Member, Secretary of the Changsha Municipal Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee from October 2020, and finally, appointed as the Mayor of Chongqing in December 2021, before being investigated recently.
In May 2023, Hu Henghua received a disciplinary warning from the Party due to a building collapse incident in Changsha, Hunan during his previous tenure there.
Hu Henghua has been absent from two significant events of the Chongqing leadership team in recent days, including the special study session of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CCP on March 18, as well as a tree-planting activity on March 19. His last public appearance was on March 16 when he chaired a meeting of the Chongqing Municipal Committee’s Talent Work Leadership Group.
Prior to Hu Henghua, three other high-ranking officials at the ministerial level and members of the Central Committee, including Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Management Wang Xiangxi, former Secretary of Inner Mongolia Sun Shaocheng, and former Secretary of Zhejiang Yi Lianhong, have also been removed from office this year.
Hu Henghua and Yi Lianhong, who was removed from office a month ago, worked together leading the city of Changsha, in Hunan Province for nearly three years.
Following Yi Lianhong’s removal, Chinese media exposed corruption within the Yi Lianhong family, especially highlighting his son Yi Shiwei’s extravagant and flamboyant lifestyle, establishing him as one of the “Seven Princes of Hunan”. The parents of the “Seven Princes” are all high-ranking officials of Hunan Province. The “Seven Princes” were reported to have intervened in major projects and personnel matters in Hunan. According to unofficial reports, Hu Henghua’s son is also one of the “Seven Princes of Hunan”.
The Chongqing political scene has been plagued by a series of incidents involving high-ranking officials, leading to the belief that it is under a curse. Bo Xilai, the Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, fell from power on March 15, 2012, and was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 22, 2013. Subsequently, Sun Zhengcai, who succeeded as Secretary of Chongqing, was removed from office in July 2017. The next Secretary, Chen Min’er, who was considered Xi Jinping’s potential successor, was eventually transferred to Tianjin. Four successive directors of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, Wang Lijun, He Ting, Zhu Mingguo, and Deng Huilin, were also removed from their positions.
In late October 2019, during the Fourth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee in Beijing, Ren Xuefeng, then Deputy Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee, died under mysterious circumstances. It was rumored that he fell to his death.
In recent years, the Beijing authorities have been “cleaning up the remnants of Bo Xilai and Sun Zhengcai” by investigating deputy ministerial-level officials, including former Deputy Mayor of Chongqing Xiong Xue, Jiang Duntao, former Deputy Director of the Chongqing People’s Congress Zheng Hong, former member of the Chongqing Municipal Committee and Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee Lu Kehua, and former Deputy Chairman of the Chongqing CPPCC Duan Chenggang. Wu Cunrong, the former Chairman of the Shanxi Provincial CPPCC, who had been a Deputy Mayor of Chongqing, was also removed from office. Former Chongqing Mayor Tang Liangzhi was demoted to the Chairman of the Anhui Provincial CPPCC before recently being reassigned as the Deputy Director of the Education, Science, and Health Committee of the National CPPCC.
On March 17, 2026, a user account named “Zhongri Political and Economic Commentary (President Lu)” posted, “It’s time for Chongqing Mayor Hu Henghua to be investigated in the wake of the Hunan cases. In recent years, Chongqing has seen the downfall of two Politburo Standing Committee members (Bo Xilai and Sun Zhengcai); the removal of two Mayors (Tang Liangzhi and Hu Henghua); the dismissal of one Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Committee (Ren Xuefeng); the fall of one Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Committee (Wu Cunrong); the removal of one successor (Chen Min’er). This Feng Shui is invincible.”