What’s new: A former vice chairman of Jiangsu province’s top legislature has been indicted on charges of bribery and illegal sale of land-use rights, China’s top prosecuting authority announced.
Liu Handong, a long-serving official in East China’s Jiangsu, allegedly took advantage of his various positions over the past two decades to seek benefits for others and accepted a large sum of money and valuables in return, according to a Monday statement from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.
The prosecutors in the case — which was heard in Xiangyang, Hubei province — also charged Liu with abusing his power in granting land-use right transfers and exemptions of land value-added tax, which resulted in “significant losses for public assets,” the statement said.
Liu also allegedly sold land-use rights in violation of land management regulations “for the purpose of profit-making.”
The background: Liu’s indictment came more than a year after he fell under a graft probe in April 2023. He was expelled from the Communist Party in February and officially arrested in March.
The 65-year-old is a native of Shucheng in the eastern province of Anhui. He spent over four decades in neighboring Jiangsu, working his way up from a mechanic in Jiangpu county to the party chief of the region. He later served as standing committee member of the provincial capital Nanjing’s Communist Party committee and mayor of Zhenjiang.
He also served as director of the provincial finance department from 2012 to 2018 before being named vice chairman of the standing committee of the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
