China Executes Senior Official

AP Photo

By ELAINE KURTENBACH Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) - Underscoring the government's determination to punish corruption, China today executed a deputy provincial governor, one of the highest-level officials caught in a long campaign to root out graft.

Hu Changqing, former deputy governor of eastern China's Jiangxi province, was executed this morning in the provincial capital of Nanchang after the Supreme People's Court upheld his death sentence, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

A deputy director of the governing State Council's Religious Affairs Commission before he moved to Jiangxi, Hu was sentenced to death last month for taking bribes worth $658,000 and possession of nearly $195,000 worth of property from unidentified sources.

Hu appealed his sentence, but the Jiangxi Higher Court rejected the appeal on March 1 after investigating to confirm that the evidence used against him was authentic and sufficient and he had been judged properly in accordance with the law, Xinhua reported.

It cited the Supreme Court's decision as saying that ``as a senior government official, Hu should have acted as a model and strictly abided by state laws, instead of abusing his power to make illegal profits.''

Hu was made an example to warn other corrupt officials, the Communist Party's newspaper, People's Daily, said in a commentary.

His execution showed that ``no one can escape the punishment of the law if he has broken the law, no matter how high his position or how powerful he is,'' it said.

Hu's was one of 17 high-level corruption cases the government says investigators broke last year in their seven-year campaign to wipe out the graft that pervades nearly every aspect of Chinese life, undermining support for the ruling Communist Party.

The execution coincided with the annual session of the National People's Congress, which convened Sunday. Corruption has overshadowed the gathering: on the eve of the opening session, the government confirmed that a vice chairman of the congress, Cheng Kejie, was under investigation for economic crimes.

China's practice of executing people convicted of economic crimes has been condemned by international rights groups.

``The tactic of high-profile executions clearly timed to warn and frighten top officials is patently not working. The death penalty is never an effective deterrent against crime and has had no noticeable impact on levels of corruption, which are still mind-boggling,'' said Catherine Baber of Amnesty International.

Investigations into other smuggling and corruption cases have shaken two wealthy coastal provinces and reached the upper echelons of power, causing friction among the powerful and raising worries about party unity at a time of growing social unrest.

While the leadership publicized Hu's death sentence and execution, they have been less open about communist China's largest corruption scandal.

The investigation into the smuggling of $9.5 billion worth of oil and other goods through the port city of Xiamen has divided the senior leadership, with President Jiang Zemin moving to protect a Politburo protege, according to party officials.

Among those implicated in the scandal was the wife of Beijing party secretary Jia Qinglin, a Jiang ally.

Chen Mingyi, Fujian's party boss, said there had been a ``a big breakthrough'' in the Xiamen case but more investigation was needed.

``Our attitude is that smuggling destroys the economic order, causing great harm to state property and corrupts some officials,'' Chen said.

``When this case has been wrapped up we will responsibly tell everybody,'' he said.

Although hundreds of thousands of officials have been punished and many jailed, China has rarely executed top level officials for corruption.

Former Beijing Communist Party chief and mayor Chen Xitong, the highest-level official publicly punished so far, was sentenced in 1998 to 16 years in prison for his role in a massive graft scandal that may have cost the city more than $2 billion.

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