Former deputy governor of Zhejiang Province and Vice Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Zhu Congjiu, known as the “billionaire deputy governor,” stood trial for corruption, accused of accepting bribes totaling more than 105 million yuan.
On September 6, the Intermediate People’s Court of Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, publicly conducted the first trial of Zhu Congjiu, former member of the party committee and vice chairman of the CPPCC of Zhejiang Province, on charges of bribery.
According to the Ganzhou City Prosecutor’s Office, from 2002 to 2022, Zhu Congjiu allegedly used his authority in key positions at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, as well as the Zhejiang Provincial Government and CPPCC to provide assistance to multiple entities and individuals in matters such as company listings, financing, loans, and corporate operations, receiving over 105 million yuan worth of assets directly or indirectly. The prosecution has recommended holding Zhu Congjiu criminally responsible for the crime of bribery.
Zhu Congjiu made a final statement in court, confessing and expressing remorse. The court announced that the verdict will be delivered at a later date.
In May 2023, Zhu Congjiu was placed under investigation; on November 7 of the same year, he was officially expelled from the Party and Government service (“double designation”); and on November 14, he was formally arrested. In the notification of the “double designation” in November, Zhu Congjiu was accused of “forming cliques, disrupting the political environment, privately bringing banned books into the country and reading them for a long time to resist organizational review,” and being “extremely greedy, living off the financial system.”
Public records show that the 59-year-old Zhu Congjiu, originally from Feixi, Anhui, had worked in the securities supervision system for over twenty years.
In 2000, Zhu Congjiu served as the General Manager of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and in 2008, he became the Assistant Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and Director of the Issuance Department; at the age of 47 in 2012, Zhu Congjiu was appointed as the deputy governor of Zhejiang Province, overseeing finance, until he stepped back to the second line at the Zhejiang CPPCC in 2022.
Previously reported by Caixin, upon Zhu Congjiu’s appointment as the deputy governor of Zhejiang, his career advancement was hindered by the perception that his family was too wealthy, even leading to the nickname “Billionaire Zhu.” Zhu Congjiu was considered one of the “wealthy individuals” among the officials of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and Zhejiang Province, with assets worth several billion yuan declared to the organization. Zhu Congjiu’s wife worked in the high-income private equity fund industry.
Industry insiders suggest that Zhu Congjiu’s substantial family wealth is closely related to his wife’s profession and his area of oversight.