What’s new: China’s top graft busters have launched an investigation into former deputy head of the Sichuan provincial political advisory body Yang Kening, following corruption probes into several officials who worked with him.
Yang is suspected of “serious violations of (Communist Party) discipline and law” — a common euphemism for corruption — the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a one-line statement Thursday.
The 61-year-old was last seen in public on Monday, when he attended a tea party organized by the United Front Work Department of Sichuan and provincial ethnic and religious affairs commission in provincial capital Chengdu.
The background: A native of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in Sichuan, Yang has worked in the prefecture for nearly four decades. He began his career in 1982 as a canteen accountant for a county-level commercial bureau before rising to become the prefecture’s governor and deputy party chief in 2015.
In 2021, he was promoted to deputy head of the Sichuan Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a post he held for nearly two years before retiring in January.
The probe into Yang is part of President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-graft campaign that has ensnared dozens of senior officials this year alone.
Since August, several officials who worked with Yang in Ngawa prefecture have been investigated for corruption, including Ge Ning, a senior government inspector; Ba Li, director of the prefecture’s culture, sports and tourism bureau; and Ni Yong, vice mayor and top cop of Barkam, a county-level city.
Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
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