China executes former top government official

Li Jianping was sentenced to death for embezzling over $400 million

China has executed a former official who was convicted of corruption totaling more than 3 billion yuan ($412 million), CCTV has reported, citing a court in the North Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The execution comes as part of a widespread anti-corruption crackdown by the authorities in Beijing.  

Li Jianping, former secretary of the Communist Party working committee of the Hohhot economic and technological development zone, was found guilty of crimes including bribery, misappropriation of public funds and colluding with a criminal syndicate.  

The 64-year-old Li had initially been sentenced to death in September 2022 after authorities found he had leveraged his position as a state employee to embezzle funds. He lost an appeal this August and the verdict was then approved by China’s Supreme People’s Court. It was carried out on Tuesday.   

The top court verified that Li misused over 1.437 billion yuan ($197 million) from state-owned company funds “through deceptive means,” of which more than 289 million yuan ($39.6 million) has yet to be recovered. 

Read more

Additionally, he took more than 577 million yuan ($79.2 million) in bribes in exchange for providing benefits, and embezzled over 1.06 billion yuan ($137 million) in public funds, with more than 404 million yuan ($55.4 million) still unrecovered before the case was exposed, according to Chinese media reports.  

Last month, a former chairman of the Bank of China, Liu Liange, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes worth the equivalent of nearly $17 million and illegally issuing loans.   

The two-year suspension, which was granted because the accused had cooperated with the authorities and shown remorse, means that the sentence will only be carried out if Liu commits further crimes during the period. If reprieved, he will serve a life sentence. 

Since securing his third term in office in 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stepped up his anti-corruption efforts.   

Multiple billionaires and bankers have been expelled from the party and jailed over the course of Beijing’s sweeping campaign against graft.   

The campaign enjoys considerable public support, although critics claim it allows the president to consolidate power by replacing rivals with loyalists in key positions.