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China: Anti-graft policy doubts
By CNN Senior China Analyst Willy Wo-Lap Lam
(CNN) -- Doubts have been cast on President Hu Jintao's commitment to combat corruption despite the high-profile sacking of the veteran Minister of Land and Resources, Tian Fengshan. The national media reported on Wednesday his deputy, former Shansi Governor Sun Wensheng, had been promoted to take Tian's place. The official Xinhua News Agency said Tian was "under investigation for severe breach of [Communist party] discipline." Diplomatic sources said Tian, a former governor of Heilongjiang, had long been the butt of innuendo about corruption and other economic crimes in the northeastern province. The sources said, however, that while party authorities had started investigating the Tian case at least a few years ago, everything was shrouded in secrecy. And according to past practice, it was possible that Tian would only be subject to internal party disciplinary actions -- but not criminal proceedings in a court of law. This is exactly what happened to one of this year's best-known corrupt officials, former party chief of Hebei Cheng Weigao. Despite being investigated for more than a decade for graft and other economic irregularities, Cheng was merely kicked out of the party earlier this year. By contrast, a number of lower-level officials charged with corruption have been given long jail terms or even the death sentence. For example, a senior state entrepreneur in Chongqing, Hu Qineng, was executed earlier this week for having pocketed 11.9 million yuan in ill-gotten gains. Western diplomats and human rights watchdogs are particularly interested in the case of Zhou Zhengyi, the "premier Shanghai tycoon" and real-estate speculator who was detained in May. Zhou is known to have close personal and business ties with a large number of senior cadres and banking officials in Shanghai. However, sources in Shanghai said Zhou would only be charged with two relatively minor offenses: manipulating stock prices and providing false information to securities regulatory agencies. The sources said Beijing authorities would not investigate the much more serious allegations of Zhou's corrupt dealings with senior local officials in the time being. Meanwhile, a Shanghai lawyer instrumental in exposing Zhou's real estate-related monkey businesses, Zheng Enchong, was given a three-year jail term this week for "illegally providing state secrets to people abroad." Zheng represented more than 2,000 Shanghai residents who claimed they had been forcibly evicted out of their homes to make way for Zhou's re-development projects. Zheng reportedly encouraged many of the displaced Shanghainese to write to Beijing departments exposing Zhou's financial irregularities and graft-related practices in the city. Since early this year, President Hu and the Politburo member in charge of fighting graft, Wu Guanzheng, have made it clear they would leave no stone unturned in cracking down on high-level corruption scandals.
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