A SENIOR official has been expelled from China’s ruling Communist Party, state media reported today, becoming the latest victim of President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-corruption campaign.
Ma Xingrui, 66, is one of three members of the current political committee, whose term runs from 2022 to 2027, to be purged in the anti-corruption campaign. The others are military generals.
His downfall was confirmed in April, when it was announced that he was under investigation for severe violations of party discipline and national laws, though no details were given.
Today’s reports said that party authorities had concluded that he committed a long list of offences, ranging from accepting gifts and money to engaging in “power-for-sex” and “power-for-money” transactions.
Other violations listed included using his position to secure contracts and job promotions for others and ignoring violations and alleged criminal conduct by close members of his staff.
Mr Ma was the Communist Party leader in the Xinjiang region until 2025, and before that the governor of Guangdong province, the manufacturing powerhouse bordering Hong Kong.
Separately, the party’s anti-corruption body announced today that it was investigating the director of mine safety in Shanxi province, one of China’s major coal-producing regions, following a deadly explosion in May that killed 82 workers.
Hu Haijun, director of the Shanxi bureau of the National Mine Safety Administration, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, the government’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said on Monday night.
Mr Hu, also the Communist Party chief of his bureau, is the highest-ranking official to be caught up in a widening probe of Shanxi province’s coal mining sector, according to Chinese business publication Caixin.
Two researchers in the bureau’s eighth division are also under investigation, state media reported earlier this month.
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