Recent news from China reveals that multiple high-ranking executives from China Unicom and China Mobile, two major telecommunications companies in the empire of Jiang Mianheng, have been investigated and taken down one after another on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law by the CCP’s disciplinary department. Analysts believe that this is a further move by Xi Jinping to crack down on Jiang Mianheng’s telecom empire, “purge” the influence of the Jiang family, and create a chilling effect, forcing CCP officials to be “absolutely loyal.”
On July 30, the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced on its official website that Huo Haifeng, the former Party Committee Secretary and General Manager of China Unicom’s Beijing Branch, is under investigation for serious violations of discipline and law. Huo Haifeng has become the latest high-ranking executive to fall from grace at China Unicom.
Public records show that Huo Haifeng has held positions such as Assistant to the President of Netcom Group, General Manager of the Comprehensive Department, General Manager of China Unicom Shandong Branch, and General Manager of the Beijing Branch, and was a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. According to mainland media reports in March of this year, Huo Haifeng, now considered to be of “retiring age,” was reassigned as a senior executive. He was transferred to the position of General Manager of Beijing Unicom in 2015, serving for 8 years.
Since the end of last year, in addition to Huo Haifeng, three other high-ranking executives at China Unicom have also fallen. On December 19 last year, Deng Xuan, former Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager of China Unicom Shanghai Branch, was investigated; on January 23 this year, Wang Yingpei, former General Manager of the Value-Added Services Department of China Unicom, was investigated; and on February 8, Meng Xiangsen, Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager of China Unicom Hainan Province Branch, was investigated.
Furthermore, on May 7, the Intermediate People’s Court of Qingdao, Shandong Province announced the sentencing of Li Guohua, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Group and General Manager of China Unicom, for bribery and abuse of power, sentencing him to 16 years in prison and imposing a fine of 6 million RMB, with confiscation of proceeds from the crimes handed over to the state treasury.
In response to the serious corruption in the industry and the continuous investigation of top executives, causing a series of “cleanups” within the company, China Unicom has had to establish a three-tier discipline inspection and supervision mechanism with over 1,900 full-time discipline inspection personnel to strengthen self-examination. On July 29, China Unicom held a so-called party discipline warning and education meeting in Beijing, further intensifying its internal investigation.
China Unicom is considered the stronghold of Jiang Zemin’s eldest son Jiang Mianheng, and the CCP’s action against it is seen as Xi Jinping’s ongoing “clean-up” of the Jiang family’s power base.
Lai Jianping, a former Beijing lawyer and chairman of the Overseas Democratic Canada, said in an interview with Dajiyuan that although Jiang Zemin has passed away, there are still many party members supporting Jiang Mianheng, which worries Xi Jinping. Xi fears that the Princelings might form a powerful force at a critical juncture and threaten his position. Therefore, in order to protect the power and the party, Xi will definitely take action.
Lai Jianping further explained that to eliminate hidden dangers, the telecom empire controlled by Jiang Mianheng also needs to be purged, “all people involved, anyone that the organization deems to be problematic or poses a certain risk must undergo a thorough cleanup.” And the method of cleanup is through anti-corruption measures, “because CCP officials, the main ones in state-owned enterprises, all have dirty pasts involving corruption, illegal activities, and breaches of discipline. So basically, he aims directly at each one.”
Jiang Mianheng’s telecom empire primarily consists of two major players: China Unicom and China Mobile. Recently, executives from China Mobile have also been subject to subsequent investigations.
According to the CCP Disciplinary Commission’s official website on July 13, Liu Yingjie, Deputy Party Committee Secretary and Deputy General Manager of China Mobile’s Xinjiang branch, is under investigation for serious disciplinary and legal violations. He is the latest top executive to fall from grace at China Mobile.
Liu Yingjie served as the General Manager of Kuitun Mobile in 2017, was promoted to General Manager of Yili Mobile in 2019, and in 2012, he was further promoted to Deputy General Manager and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of China Mobile Xinjiang Company.
Just a month before Liu Yingjie’s downfall on June 2, Wei Ming, the former Party Committee Secretary, Chairman, and General Manager of China Mobile Guangdong Company, underwent investigation by the CCP Disciplinary Department; and Wu Zhifeng, Deputy General Manager of China Mobile Yunnan Company, was investigated by the CCP Disciplinary Department in March.
From April 7 to June 25 last year, the CCP Central Inspection Team launched an inspection of China Mobile, and feedback opinions from the inspection were provided. Accordingly, China Mobile actively embarked on “self-reform” based on this and published its progress in the rectification, stating that it aims to align thoughts and behaviors with Xi Jinping’s ideology.
Lai Jianping said that Xi Jinping’s so-called “anti-corruption” now requires not only refraining from wrongdoing, avoiding coveting power, and refraining from unauthorized criticism but also demands each individual to express absolute loyalty, praise, and actively demonstrate unwavering loyalty; anything less than absolute loyalty is considered total disloyalty. One must meet this standard for Xi Jinping to stop. This is Xi Jinping’s established policy strategy and the direction we can see in the future.
As early as 1994, Jiang Mianheng used millions of RMB in “loans” to purchase the Shanghai Lianhe Investment Company, worth hundreds of millions of RMB, and served as its chairman and legal representative, with Yang Xiong, who later became the mayor of Shanghai (passed away in April 2021), as the first General Manager. According to Hong Kong entrepreneur Yuan Gongyi’s previous disclosure to Dajiyuan, the overseas funds of the Jiang family amount to approximately $1 trillion, making them the largest among the families of high-ranking CCP officials.
Since assuming power, Xi Jinping has used anti-corruption measures to consolidate his power. In 2015, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection intensified its cleaning efforts on major state-owned enterprises in the oil, finance, and telecommunications industries. In August of the same year, Chang Xiaobing, who had just been reassigned from China Unicom to oversee China Telecom, was investigated by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection at the end of the year, becoming the first executive of China Telecom to fall from grace while in office.
The relationship between China Unicom and the Jiang Zemin family is deeply intertwined. After the death of Zhao Weichen, the founding chairman of China Unicom, in October 2016, the relationship between him and Jiang’s family gradually came to light. When China Unicom was established, the then CCP leader Jiang Zemin wrote an inscription. Later, Jiang Zemin’s eldest son Jiang Mianheng became involved with China Unicom, which subsequently became a lucrative money bag for the Jiang family.
Chang Xiaobing, before being reassigned to China Telecom, worked at China Unicom for 11 years since 2004, making him the longest-serving core executive at China Unicom; in 2008, after the merger of China Unicom and China Netcom, Chang Xiaobing became the chairman. It was alleged that the real boss behind China Unicom was Jiang Mianheng, with Chang Xiaobing merely serving as Jiang Mianheng’s pawn.
On May 31, 2017, Chang Xiaobing was sentenced to six years in prison for bribery and fined 500,000 RMB, with confiscation of proceeds from bribery handed over to the state treasury. The Intermediate People’s Court of Baoding, which handled the case, stated that Chang Xiaobing voluntarily confessed to all bribery facts that the investigating authority had not yet discovered and “reported other illegal and criminal facts,” resulting in a lighter sentence.
The CCP continues to purge Jiang Mianheng’s telecom empire, with another important background.
During the CCP’s “Two Sessions” this year, General Ju Qiansheng, the former commander of the Strategic Support Force, and General Xu Zhongbo, former political commissar of the Rocket Force, who had been involved in a military corruption case and disappeared from the public eye for nearly half a year, made appearances at the sessions, indicating that they had landed safely. According to exclusive information from legal scholar Yuan Hongbing to Dajiyuan, Ju Qiansheng and Xu Zhongbo were able to smoothly land due to actively disclosing others, including Jiang Mianheng, who had previously been involved in the military industry.
As disclosed by Yuan Hongbing, both individuals confessed that this corruption case had a direct connection to Jiang Mianheng. The authorities believe that these senior military officers embroiled in corruption cases formed a political clique with Jiang Mianheng based on economic corruption and power and money transactions in private, in some non-organizational activities attacking Xi Jinping’s governance.
Against this backdrop, in June, Jiang Mianheng stepped down from the position of the President of ShanghaiTech University, a position he had held for ten years, and was appointed as the Chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees. At the same time, Jiang Mianheng published an open letter to all staff on the official website of ShanghaiTech University, stating that he is no longer serving as president because he has completed two consecutive ten-year terms and has been over 70 for several years.
Political commentator Chen Pokong believes that Jiang Mianheng’s statement may seem somewhat self-deprecating but is, in fact, a satire on Xi Jinping. This is because Xi Jinping has completed two government terms but has not stepped down yet and has continued in office through constitutional amendments.
ShanghaiTech University was founded by Jiang Mianheng in September 2013, jointly constructed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai Municipal Government. At that time, Jiang Mianheng was the Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Director of the Shanghai Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and he served as the first President of ShanghaiTech University. Thus, ShanghaiTech University also became Jiang Mianheng’s independent kingdom.
In addition to facing Xi Jinping’s “clean-up,” Jiang Mianheng’s telecom empire is also subjected to strict scrutiny from the United States.
China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom are the three major telecommunications giants in China. The U.S. administration began investigations on these three companies in June of this year to determine whether they would transfer data obtained from U.S. cloud services and network operations to Beijing, posing security risks.
These three companies in the U.S. are limited to providing cloud services and routing services for wholesale network traffic to the U.S. The relevant departments of the U.S. Department of Commerce responsible for the investigation have issued subpoenas to these three companies and have completed risk analysis on China Mobile and China Telecom.
As early as September 20, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) included Pacific Networks, its wholly-owned subsidiary ComNet, and China Unicom on the national security blacklist. This decision was motivated by the fact that these companies are influenced and controlled by the CCP, posing national security threats.
Earlier, in 2022, the FCC revoked telecom service licenses provided by China Unicom, Pacific Networks, and ComNet, citing national security concerns, while China Telecom was prohibited from providing services in the U.S. in 2021, and China Mobile was banned in 2019. Consequently, all three major Chinese telecommunications companies were added to the blacklist as posing a national security threat to the U.S.