What’s new: Li Chunsheng, a former police chief and ex-vice governor of South China's Guangdong province, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for corruption, a court in central China’s Hunan province said Wednesday.
Li used his positions as a senior government official in Henan and Guangdong between 2001 and 2022 to offer favors in business deals and job promotions for companies and individuals, in exchange for 79.4 million yuan ($11 million) in bribes, court documents showed.
Li’s actions constituted bribery, involving a particularly large sum, and caused significant harm to the state and public interests, the court said. The court served him with a reduced sentence as some of his bribery attempts were unsuccessful, he had surrendered voluntarily and he had reported the criminal activities of others.
Background: Li, 63, turned himself in to the country’s top anti-graft agency in November 2022. He was expelled from the Communist Party in June 2023.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in a June statement accused Li of trading influence for sex, illegally interfering in judicial and law enforcement cases and meddling in capital market activities.
He was the first high-ranking official in the public security system to fall from grace since the 20th party congress in October 2022.
A native of Central China’s Henan province, Li worked there for more than two decades before moving to Beijing in 2006 to head a bureau in charge of personnel training at the Ministry of Public Security.
In 2013, he moved to Guangdong to serve as the province’s vice governor and director of the provincial public security department until 2021, when he became deputy head of the provincial legislature.
During his tenure at the Ministry of Public Security, Li crossed paths with Sun Lijun, the fallen former Vice Public Security Minister, and members of his “political clique”: Gong Daoan, Shanghai’s former police chief, and Liu Yanping, an ex-senior party discipline inspector at the Ministry of State Security. The trio were sentenced to life in prison or received suspended death penalties for corruption.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com)
