The former vice-chairman of China's
National People's Congress, Mr Cheng Kejie, looks set to become the
highest ranking communist official to be executed for corruption
since 1949.
China's official media announced Mr Cheng's arrest earlier this
week, little more than a month after he had been expelled from the
Chinese Communist Party and stripped of his NPC position.
The former governor of the poor south-western province of
Guangxi, on the border with Vietnam, Mr Cheng has been accused of
accepting bribes and kickbacks worth around $7.6 million.
This week's arrest of Mr Cheng highlights the renewed efforts
which the Beijing leadership has put into fighting the corruption
fast becoming rampant within the ruling party.
A recent report carried by the official Xinhua news agency said
the number of corruption cases to come before Beijing courts in the
first three months of 2000 was up 33 per cent on the same period
last year.
Over the past month the former vice-governor of Jiangxi province,
Hu Changqing, and the former deputy mayor of the city of Guigang in
Guangxi, Li Chenglong, have both been executed by Chinese
authorities on corruption charges.
The amount of money involved in Mr Cheng's case would also see
the former NPC vice-chairman executed if, as is expected, he is
found guilty.
The arrest of Mr Cheng also makes him the highest ranking
official to be charged with corruption since the 1998 jailing of the
former Beijing mayor, Mr Chen Xitong. The Beijing Daily
newspaper yesterday said the arrest of Mr Cheng was a warning to
officials to withstand the temptations of power, money and sex.
Mr Cheng's activities first came to light after he was filmed on
video cameras in the casinos of the former Portuguese colony of
Macau, gambling with his mistress Ms Li Ping.
Authorities in the coastal province of Fujian are also still
investigating what is considered to be the largest ever smuggling
scandal on the mainland, involving contraband worth as much as $15
billion.
But there are suggestions that the investigation into the Fujian
smuggling ring has been hampered by the close friendship of former
Fujian party chief, Mr Jia Qinglin, and China's president, Mr Jiang
Zemin.
