Former director of the Chinese National Railway Administration, Fei Dongbin, was recently charged with bribery. Official sources previously mentioned that he was associated with political swindlers.
According to the report by Xinhua News Agency on April 27, the former Communist Party member of the Ministry of Transportation, Fei Dongbin, who served as the Party Secretary and director of the Chinese National Railway Administration, has been transferred to the prosecutor’s office. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China arrested Fei Dongbin on suspicion of bribery and designated the Changchun City Prosecutor’s Office in Jilin Province to review the case for prosecution. The Changchun City Prosecutor’s Office has filed a public prosecution to the Changchun Intermediate People’s Court.
The charges state that Fei Dongbin took advantage of his position and power to seek benefits for related organizations and individuals, illegally accepting substantial amounts of money and property, which should lead to holding him criminally responsible for bribery.
In China’s judicial practice, the crime of bribery is divided into three sentencing levels: “significant amount,” “huge amount,” and “especially huge amount.” According to the judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 2016, bribery exceeding 3 million Chinese Yuan falls under the category of “especially huge amount.” For the highest sentencing level, the individual may face a sentence of more than 10 years of imprisonment, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty.
Fei Dongbin, born in 1970, is now 56 years old and hails from Jinzhou, Liaoning Province. He is a standing committee member of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party.
Public records show that since October 2005, Fei Dongbin has successively worked in railway bureaus in Shenyang, Liaoning, Beijing, Jinan, Shandong, among other locations. After May 2016, he held positions as the Deputy Secretary of the Hohhot Municipal Party Committee and the Secretary of the Ulanqab City Party Committee in Inner Mongolia; in April 2021, he became the Vice Governor of Henan Province; in September 2022, he joined the Communist Party Committee of the Ministry of Transportation and became the Party Secretary of the National Railway Administration, then served as the director of the Railway Administration in October 2022.
Fei Dongbin underwent an investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party and the National Supervisory Commission in June last year and was expelled from the party and his position in December of the same year. This means he was removed from office during his tenure as the director of the Railway Administration.
Corruption within the Chinese railway system is a significant issue, so the arrest of the director for bribery is not surprising. It is worth noting that Fei Dongbin’s downfall may not only be related to corruption. When he was expelled from the party in December last year, the official statement mentioned that he associated with political swindlers.
The statement indicated that Fei Dongbin had lost his ideals and beliefs, abandoned his original intentions and mission, had a weak political consciousness, and “associated with political swindlers.”
Associating with political swindlers is not a criminal charge, but within the Chinese discourse system, it is a highly damaging term. It implies that there are higher-level connections behind Fei Dongbin and suggests disloyalty to the top party leadership.