Please go here for Part 1
On October 13, The Epoch Times published an article about how CCP officials rank first in the world for corruption over a billion dollars and listed five specific examples to illustrate the general phenomena of corrupt officialdom. Two cases were discussed in Part 1, and here in Part 2, we cover three more examples.
3. Profoundly corrupt official with a secret room for hiding luxury goods
On February 17, 2022, Wang Li, the former Chairman of the Bank of Qinghai and also the former deputy-head of Qinghai Province Financial Regulator, was arrested on charges of committing crimes of corruption, acceptance of bribes, and the possession of vast amounts of assets of which the sources were unknown. She was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
On January 7, 2021, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published the details of Wang Li’s corruption under the title of “The Luxury Life” of Wang Li, former Chairman of the Bank of Qinghai. It shocked the outside world.
Wang Li had a secret storage room exclusively used for hiding luxury goods, and only she knew about this place. This private residence is unremarkable on the outside, but the interior decorations were all of the “highest quality.”
In Wang Li’s private hiding place was an entire cabinet full of the famous French luxury brand Hermes scarves. Based on the market price at that time, each piece was about 3,000-4,000 yuan (US$415.00-$553.00).
There were more than 40 brand-name bags, and the most expensive one was a custom bag, with a market price of 400,000 yuan at that time (US$55,283.00). In addition, there are commemorative coins with a total value of about 500,000 yuan (US$69,103.00), several gold bars of one kilogram each, some gold and silver jewelry, and minks.
The strange part is that Wang Li had never worn these luxury goods for her use. Instead, her fetish was that she often came to this secret hideaway and closed the door to admire her stash of luxury goods.
Wang Li once told the investigators that her “greatest joy” was to wear these luxury items, such as gemstone necklaces and clothing on her body, then look in the mirror and enjoy the sight. Then, after she was satisfied, she would place the items back in their original place.
4. Head of the National Bureau of Statistics bribed with surrogacy fees
On May 31, 2017, Wang Baoan, the former Deputy Minister of Finance and Director of the National Bureau of Statistics, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting bribes of 153 million yuan (US$21.15 million)
In August 2019, China Judgments Online announced the first-instance criminal judgments on bribery by Haite Electronics Group Co Ltd and Shandong Shengong Haite Electronic Technology Co. Ltd.
The primary controller of the two companies, corrupt Chinese official Guan Chengshan, was convicted of offering bribes and sentenced to one and a half years in prison.
Guan knew that Wang had always wanted a son, so he bribed Wang by paying the surrogate fee to benefit from the State’s financial incentives. It was this criminal judgment that made public the secret of Wang Baoan resorting to surrogacy to give birth to two sons.
In the beginning, Wang Baoan helped Guan Chengshan to obtain a national financial subsidy of 33.16 million yuan (US$4.58 million) and a national new energy vehicle industry for a technological innovation project award of 150 million yuan (US$20.73 million)
Wang Baoan confessed that Guan Chengshan and his wife, to thank him, proposed to give him a son by surrogacy, to which he agreed.
On September 28, 2015, a boy was born, and the cost of surrogacy was 1.665 million yuan (US$0.23 million)
On January 18, 2016, a second boy was born by cesarean section in a hospital.
The court found that Guan Chengshan paid 3.46 million yuan (US$0.48 million) for the two surrogacies.
5. Bribery and extortion
Corrupt Chinese official Zhang Xiaojiang, the former Chairman of the Wulong District Political Consultative Conference of Chongqing Municipality, was dismissed from public office on September 25, 2017, for severe violations of discipline and law, and his case was transferred to the judicial organ to handle.
In June 2020, China’s Procuratorate released the “Indictment of Zhang Xiaojiang’s Acceptance of Bribes and Unknown Source of Huge Amount of Properties.”
Zhang Xiaojiang was charged with extorting and accepting bribes of 44 million yuan (US$6.8 million) and another 35 million yuan (US$4.84 million) in huge assets of which the legal source could not be identified. Moreover, the amount involved does not include the money for more than ten properties in the United States listed in the name of his eldest daughter.
Tip of the iceberg
On May 28, 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, when answering a reporter’s question, said that there are 600 million people in China with a monthly income of only 1,000 yuan (less than US$83). Therefore, renting a house in a medium-sized city with such income alone is complex, and life can be challenging.
For the top brass in China, everything is swinging, but life is a struggle for the rest of China. These five cases are just the tip of the iceberg and are typical of life under communist rule. They are not the exception for the elites. The communist system itself is all about graft, bribery, and corruption. These cases are probably just collateral damage.
So what are the CCP fat cat corrupt officials doing apart from living in excessive luxury? On October 22, 2022, the world got a glimpse of life at the top. The very frail Hu Jintao, the former leader of the Communist Party of China, was forcefully removed from the conference hall in the middle of the closing meeting of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
Regardless of who or what he was, everyone remained silent. Not one of them stood up to help him or protect him. Do you think they will save you or stand up for you? Again, not one of those present stood up to help him.
If, as is suggested by some that it was a medical emergency, someone would have stood up to help him, and as a CCP grandee, he would have received a standing ovation on the way out.
