What’s new: Zhang Ke, a former Communist Party chief and general manager of Taiping Life Insurance Co. Ltd., became the latest target of investigation as an anti-graft crackdown sweeps the financial industry.
Zhang is being probed “on suspicion of serious violation in law and discipline,” China’s top graft buster disclosed Thursday. Zhang headed Taiping Life, the life insurance arm of state-owned China Taiping Insurance Group Ltd. (China Taiping) for seven years starting in 2012.
Zhang was taken away by authorities July 21 from a hotel in Shanghai before he was to attend an insurance industry conference, people familiar with the matter told Caixin.
The probe of Zhang is most likely linked to the case of Wang Bin, a former chairman of China Taiping who was charged with concealing overseas deposits and accepting bribes, sources said.
Wang, who was placed under investigation in 2022, was recently convicted in a court in Jinan, East China’s Shandong province. A sentence hasn’t been pronounced.
The context: Zhang, 59, worked nearly 20 years at China Taiping, holding various senior positions in the group and its subsidiaries, including Taiping Life and Taiping General Insurance Co. Ltd.
He was named general manager of Taiping Life in 2012 when Wang was head of the group. During Zhang’s tenure, the life insurer achieved robust growth with its insurance business revenue nearly quadrupling from 36.5 billion yuan ($5 billion) to 141.2 billion yuan in seven years.
Zhang stepped down as Taiping Life general manager in 2019 to serve as the parent company’s chief strategic adviser. He left China Taiping in 2020 to join Yunfeng Capital.
In July, anti-graft officials launched an investigation of China Taiping Deputy General Manager Xiao Xing. The probe is part of a recent graft crackdown targeting officialdom in Shanghai, Caixin learned.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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