An inspector calls: how Chinese officials suspected of corruption react to their investigators
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 17 February, 2016, 11:23pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 17 February, 2016, 11:23pm
Fu Yaobo (back) and Zhang Qingzhao (front), two of China’s most wanted fugitives, are repatriated from the Caribbean state of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. They fled abroad a year and a half ago under suspicion of embezzling public funds of 29.96 million yuan and appeared on an official list of China’s 100 most wanted fugitives in April. Photo: Xinhua
Catching sight of a team of graft-busters can be a truly frightening sight if you are an official suspected of corruption – so much so you might try to jump from the nearest window, or faint with fear.
That’s how at least two such officials reacted when inspectors from the Central Commission for Discipline came calling, according to an article on the WeChat account of The Beijing News.
They were among a handful of cases in which anti-corruption inspectors turned up to meetings unannounced to take the officials into custody, most having no idea they were about to be detained.
Yang Weize, the now disgraced former Nanjing (南京) Communist Party secretary, was apprehended after being informed he needed to attend a meeting held by the Jiangsu (江蘇) provincial party committee.
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Some reports have suggested he was tipped off that he was the target of an investigation, and according to the News, he spent 15 minutes smoking in his office after calling other officials to confirm the meeting had been called.
Even so, he attended, and when he spotted the graft-busters tried to jump from a nearby window.
The suicide attempt was stopped and pictures emerged online showing Yang, wearing a face mask, surrounded by five identically dressed young men on a railway platform.
Yang Hongwei, the deputy party secretary of Chuxiong prefecture in Yunnan (雲南), had been at a meeting in April 2011 when he found out he was under investigation. He collapsed out of fear and had to be carried away by four police officers.
Two teams were needed to oversee the detention of the vice-governor of Jiangxi (江西), Yao Mugen. One swooped on Yao as he attended a meeting in Shandong (山東) province.
The other took away his wife and aides in Nanchang (南昌) in Jiangxi (江西).
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Chen Xuefeng, the party secretary in Luoyang, Henan province, and the first senior official to be placed under investigation for graft this year, was talking to another senior official while waiting for a lift after a meeting when he was surrounded by anti-corruption investigators.
Former Guangzhou party secretary Wan Qingliang was grabbed straight after a meeting and flown to Beijing by an entourage of 11.
The inspectors cleared the first class cabin of an airliner for the operation in June 2014, the report said.
Li Chuncheng, former deputy Sichuan party secretary, tried to throw his mobile phone’s SIM card into a toilet after hearing he was being investigated in 2012.
Not all officials seem so surprised. Inspectors swooped on Qiu He, the former deputy party secretary of Yunnan province, shortly after he returned to his hotel from the closing ceremony of the National People’s Congress last March. Qiu appeared calm and nodded to others during his detention, delegates were quoted as saying.
