Guizhou Province can be considered one of the poorest provinces in China. However, in recent years, at least six corrupt officials with billions of RMB have been caught. Since January 2024, three people have been sentenced; one in 2022, one in 2021, and one in 2019. Among them, one is at the provincial department level, three at the deputy provincial department level, and two at the bureau level.
Now, let’s take a brief look at the amounts of corruption published by the Chinese Communist Party regarding these corrupt officials with billions of RMB.
On January 17, 2022, Wang Fuyu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by the Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court for accepting bribes. The court determined that from 1995 to 2021, Wang Fuyu, utilizing his positions as Secretary of the Communist Party Committee and Mayor of Qiongshan City, Hainan Province, Secretary of Sanya City Committee, Vice Secretary of Hainan Province Committee and Secretary of Haikou City Committee, Vice Secretary of Guizhou Province Committee, and Vice Chairman and Chairman of Guizhou Province Political Consultative Conference, directly or through others, accepted bribes totaling more than 4.34 billion RMB.
From 2019 to 2020, after leaving office, Wang Fuyu also accepted bribes using his influence, totaling over 17.35 million RMB.
On August 13, 2024, Li Zaiyong was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by the Fifth Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing. The court determined that from 1998 to 2023, Li Zaiyong, utilizing his positions as Secretary of Red Flower Ridge District Committee in Zunyi City, Vice Governor of Qiandongnan Prefecture, Vice Secretary of Tongren Party Committee, Commissioner of Tongren Authority, Vice Secretary of Guiyang Municipal Party Committee, Mayor of Guiyang City, Secretary of Liupanshui City Party Committee, Secretary of Guizhou Province Committee, Secretary of Guizhou Province and Municipality of Guiyang Committee, Vice Governor of Guizhou Province, received bribes totaling more than 4.32 billion RMB.
From 2014 to 2017, during his tenure as Secretary of Liupanshui Municipal Party Committee and Chairman of the Urban and Rural Planning Construction Committee, Li Zaiyong’s abuse of power caused ecological damage losses of over 86.45 million RMB.
On April 23, 2019, Wang Xiaoguang was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a fine of 173 million RMB by the First Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing for accepting bribes, corruption, and insider trading. The court determined that from 1998 to 2017, Wang Xiaoguang, utilizing his positions as District Head, District Secretary of Udu District in Guiyang City, Deputy Mayor of Guiyang City, Secretary General of the Communist Party Committee of Guiyang City, Deputy Secretary, Deputy Mayor, Acting Mayor, and Mayor of Zunyi City Committee, Secretary of Liupanshui City Committee, Secretary of Zunyi City Committee, and Vice Secretary of the Guizhou Province Committee, directly or through his close relatives, accepted bribes totaling approximately 48.70435 million RMB.
From 1999 to 2000, while serving as District Head in Udu District, Guiyang City, Wang Xiaoguang illegally obtained land-use fees of over 4.8 million RMB.
From August 2009 to February 2016, by utilizing his position and work relationships to obtain insider information illegally, Wang Xiaoguang or his relatives purchased related stocks during the sensitive period of insider information, with a total turnover of 49 million RMB, making a profit of 16 million RMB.
On March 26, 2024, Zhou Jiankun was sentenced to life imprisonment by the First Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing for bribery. The court determined that from 1999 to 2022, Zhou Jiankun used his positions, such as Deputy Secretary, Mayor, Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, Vice Director of the Economic and Information Committee of Guizhou Province, Deputy Secretary of the Anshun Municipal Committee, Director, Deputy Governor, and Deputy Secretary of the Guizhou Province Political Consultative Conference, to accept bribes totaling over 1.08 billion RMB.
On September 23, 2021, Yuan Renguo was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Intermediate People’s Court of Guiyang for accepting bribes. The court found that from 1994 to 2018, Yuan Renguo, using his positions such as Deputy General Manager of Guizhou Moutai Distillery, Vice President, Deputy Director, General Manager, and Chairman of China Guizhou Moutai Group, Chairman of Guizhou Moutai Liquor Co., Ltd., accepted bribes totaling over 1.129 billion RMB.
On February 2, 2024, Gao Weidong was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Intermediate People’s Court of Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province, for accepting bribes. The court determined that from 1999 to 2022, Gao Weidong, using his positions such as Director of Guiyang Economic, Technological Development Zone Planning and Construction Environmental Protection Bureau, Deputy District Head of Xiaohe District in Guiyang City, Chairman of Jinyang New Area Development and Construction Co., Ltd., Chairman of Jinyang Construction Investment (Group) Co., Ltd., Director of the Traffic and Transportation Bureau of Guiyang City, Deputy Mayor of Guiyang City, Deputy Secretary and Director of the Party Work Committee, and Director of the Guizhou Coalfield Geology Bureau accepted bribes totaling over 1.1 billion RMB.
Wang Fuyu’s corruption lasted 26 years (1995-2021); Li Zaiyong’s lasted 25 years (1998-2023); Yuan Renguo’s lasted 24 years (1994-2018); Zhou Jiankun and Gao Weidong’s each lasted 23 years (1999-2022); while Wang Xiaoguang’s lasted 18 years (1998-2016).
Since Xi Jinping launched the anti-corruption campaign in 2013, all the public opinion battles, legal battles, psychological battles, etc., before they were caught, did not have any actual restraint on their corrupt desires. They outwardly supported Xi’s anti-corruption campaign but secretly engaged in corruption.
Each of the six billion-yuan corrupt officials was promoted through investigations by the CCP’s organization department. When promoted to deputy provincial department level or higher, they were investigated by the Central Organization Department of the CCP. The result of the investigations was that they were all considered good cadres of the Party.
The CCP has numerous supervision mechanisms, including intra-party supervision, administrative supervision, People’s Congress supervision, democratic party supervision, audit supervision, anti-corruption bureau supervision, public opinion supervision, petition supervision, mass supervision, etc. Before they were investigated, almost all of these supervisions were virtually non-existent.
Guizhou has the largest number of poor people, the deepest poverty level, and the widest poverty extent in the country. In November 2020, when Li Zaiyong served as the provincial party secretary, he claimed that Guizhou had overcome poverty. However, considering Li Zaiyong’s serious corruption and the debt crisis caused by Guizhou officials who disregarded the life and death of the people and engaged in so-called “achievement projects,” it is evident that Guizhou’s poverty alleviation was completely fraudulent.
Former Deputy Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee and Chairperson of the Provincial CPPCC, Wang Fuyu, had been pursuing a luxurious lifestyle while the people of poverty-stricken Guizhou struggled. To spend winters in Sanya, summers in Guiyang, and springs and autumns in Shenzhen, he arranged for bribe-givers to buy him houses in Sanya, Shenzhen, and Guiyang, then proceed to lavish renovations.
Wang Fuyu was an avid golfer, playing from Hainan to Guizhou, from active duty to retirement, even demanding private entrepreneurs to arrange a private jet for him to play golf around the country.
Wang Fuyu was so addicted to receiving money that he admitted upon arrest: “I didn’t know what to do with the money, I don’t have to worry about food and drink. What do you need money for, to bury yourself? Now I realize my insane greed has reached the peak, but I don’t know what the money was for.”
After Vice Governor of Guizhou Province, Wang Xiaoguang, was arrested, law enforcement officers found a room in his house filled with Moutai liquor, with over 4,000 bottles. Wang Xiaoguang confessed that he had disposed of more than 4,000 bottles of the most expensive vintage liquor down the drain. In other words, the Moutai liquor stored in his house alone exceeded 8,000 bottles!
At the time, his wife lamented: “We can’t get rid of it no matter how we try, we can’t drink it all, we can’t give it away, and we can’t pour it all out.”
In March 2022, the Supreme Procuratorate released a video on WeChat revealing some details of the bribery case of Yuan Renguo, former chairman of Moutai Group. Since 2004, only Yuan Renguo’s wife and children had made illicit profits of over 230 million RMB through improper operations of Moutai liquor.
Over 40 law enforcement officers counted 1,588 items from Yuan Renguo’s home, including gold products, watches, jewelry, calligraphy, some rare items like ivory, currencies like RMB, USD, GBP, etc., taking a full day and night to complete the inventory.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection reported that Zhou Jiankun “exploited poverty alleviation projects for personal gain” and engaged in “illegally holding shares in non-listed companies, engaging in trading power for sex, corrupt power seeking, and family-style corruption, collecting money and embezzlement.”
Gao Weidong was involved in various misdeeds such as eating, drinking, prostitution, and gambling for a long time, engaging in numerous debaucheries. He confessed, “When I see money, I take it without any bottom line” and “I like to make transparent comparisons with businessmen and bosses.”
During Li Zaiyong’s governance of Liupanshui City for over three years, the addition of debts exceeded 150 billion RMB, mainly for harmful achievement projects.
After being apprehended, Li Zaiyong said, “If I had to repay the money borrowed at that time, I definitely wouldn’t have borrowed it. But since it was the government repaying it for me, I borrowed it. After a few years, I would switch positions, pat my buttocks, and leave.”
On January 16, 1995, Liu Zhengwei, former Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee, and his wife, Yan Jianhong, former Chairman of the Guizhou International Trust Investment Co., Ltd., were sentenced to death for embezzling 650,000 RMB, 14,300 USD, collaborating with others to embezzle 1.5 million RMB, personally embezzling 2.0064 million RMB and 50,000 USD, using power for illegal profits for their son Liu Bo, totaling 1.2 million RMB.
After Liu Zhengwei, Liu Fangren (1993-2001) succeeded as the Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee. In 2004, Liu Fangren was sentenced to life imprisonment for his greed and corruption.
However, whether it was the execution of Yan Jianhong or the life imprisonment of Liu Fangren, it didn’t stop the desires for wealth and pleasure of corrupt officials in Guizhou. By 2023, Sun Zhigang, former Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Party Committee, was also caught for serious corruption.
In May this year, Sun Zhigang’s case of receiving huge bribes has been prosecuted. Is Sun Zhigang another billion-yuan corrupt official in Guizhou? Let’s wait and see.
(Credit: Da Ji Yuan)