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Corrupt communist facing death

By Michael Dwyer, Hong Kong

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.



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