Another former top business leader in China has been kicked out of the Chinese Communist Party, showing how a crackdown on the country’s financial sector is continuing into the new year.
Tang Shuangning, the ex-chairman and party chief of the China Everbright Group, has been expelled over “serious violations of disciplines and laws,” the country’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission jointly announced in a statement Saturday.
The CCDI, which serves as China’s top anti-corruption watchdog, said an investigation had found that Tang had “abandoned his duties,” failed to act in diffusing financial risks and took bribes.
Tang even illegally accepted huge amounts of property and “butler-style services,” the agencies said.He also brought books into China deemed to have “serious political issues,” the authorities said. China Everbright Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tang’s suspected crimes will be referred to prosecutors for further review and potential prosecution, while the income and property he illegally received will be confiscated or transferred, according to the statement.
Tang was one of China’s most influential business leaders in his role as chairman from 2007 to 2017 at China Everbright, one of the country’s oldest and largest state-owned financial conglomerates. He also previously served as vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).
He is the latest formerly high-flying executive to run afoul of authorities in China — and the second from China Everbright to be dismissed from the party in recent months.
In April last year, another former chairman of China Everbright, Li Xiaopeng, who succeeded Tang, was investigated for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law.” According to reports, Li was expelled from the party and arrested in October on suspicion of accepting bribes. In total, the committee investigated more than a dozen senior executives at China’s most powerful financial institutions last year.
These include big names at the top of China’s financial system, such as Liu Liange, the former chairman of the state-owned Bank of China, and Wang Bin, the former president of the state-owned China Life Insurance Company. Other top executives under scrutiny by the CCDI include star investment banker and technology dealmaker Bao Fan, who disappeared last February and media reports later said he had been detained by the CCDI. China Renaissance, the investment firm he leads, subsequently appointed an interim replacement and an acting CEO in October.
Zhang Hongli, a former senior executive at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), was also the subject of an investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection last November.