On October 23, 2024, after more than four months since the first trial, Jiang Zhigang, the former vice secretary of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party of China and former secretary of the Yinchuan City Committee, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bribery. Jiang Zhigang, who disappeared two years before his arrest, was once a close associate of the Jiang faction’s key figure Zeng Qinghong.
The Hebei Hengshui Intermediate People’s Court publicly announced the verdict of Jiang Zhigang’s bribery case on October 23. Jiang Zhigang was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bribery and fined 5 million Chinese yuan.
Jiang Zhigang was accused of using his position and power from 2003 to 2023 to provide assistance to relevant units and individuals in obtaining franchise dealer qualifications, project bidding and contracting, business cooperation, and illegally accepting a total of over 79.98 million yuan in bribes.
The court stated that Jiang Zhigang’s actions constituted the crime of bribery, with an especially massive amount of bribes. Considering that Jiang voluntarily surrendered himself, “exposed the criminal acts of others, which were verified to be true, and constituted meritorious service,” as well as confessed to the crime and returned all ill-gotten gains, the court decided to give him a lighter punishment, resulting in the aforementioned sentence.
In March 2023, Jiang Zhigang was officially investigated, becoming the second vice-ministerial-level official to fall after the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In August of the same year, he was expelled from the party, and a month later, the Supreme Procuratorate decided to arrest him on suspicion of bribery. In January of this year, the Hengshui City Procuratorate filed a public prosecution, and on June 20, Jiang Zhigang’s bribery case was heard in the first trial.
Public records show that Jiang Zhigang, 64 years old this year, is from Donghai, Jiangsu. He previously held positions in military industrial enterprises, the Central Organization Department, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and the Beijing Municipal Committee Organization Department. He served as the vice secretary of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party and secretary of the Yinchuan City Committee in 2017 until he was transferred in January 2021. He then disappeared from public reports until his downfall in March last year.
Furthermore, Jiang Zhigang was an old subordinate of Zeng Qinghong, a key figure in the Jiang faction.
In 2001, Jiang Zhigang was transferred from the space system to the Central Organization Department of the Communist Party of China, where he served as the deputy director of the fifth bureau of the cadre department from April 2001 to May 2003. At that time, Zeng Qinghong was the Minister of the Central Organization Department of the Communist Party, and Jiang was his subordinate. Zeng Qinghong served as a member of the Central Political Bureau Standing Committee, Secretary of the Central Secretariat, and Minister of the Central Organization Department from 1999 to November 2002.