Jintao has been required to take the economic crime sentences of its close associates since 2013
His humiliating forced departure from the Communist Party Congress is the latest complaint Hu Jintao, the former president of China, has suffered at the hands of his successor, Xi Jinping. Since taking power, first as party secretary general in 2012 and then as president of the People’s Republic in 2013, Xi has targeted Hu’s close associates and senior officials in his fierce anti-corruption campaign.
The latest was his right-hand man, Ling Jihua, who was sentenced to life in prison in July 2016. Convicted behind closed doors, he was convicted of accepting more than $10 million in bribes and appropriating state secrets, the Xinhua bureau said. .
Ling Jihua celebrated his 66th birthday yesterday in prison, where he will spend the rest of his life. His fall from grace began in March 2012, when his only son, Ling Gu, was killed when his sports car, a Ferrari 458, crashed in Beijing while he was driving late at night with two half-naked girls. An episode that, despite censorship, once again exposed the luxurious and unruly lifestyle of the ‘red aristocracy’ that has thrived under the patronage of the Communist Party’s economic growth in recent decades.
The scandal was directed against Ling Jihua, Hu Jintao’s chief of staff at the time. After being demoted, he began under investigation in late 2014 and was expelled from the Communist Party in July 2015. Along with him, one of his brothers, Ling Zhengce, a senior official in Shanxi Province, was purged, while the other, Ling Wangcheng, fled to the United States, where he apparently owns a $2 million mansion in California.
Ling Wangcheng reportedly took 2,700 classified documents provided by his brother, including China’s nuclear codes. He is currently missing and it is not known whether he is protected by the American authorities or whether Chinese secret agents have managed to repatriate him.
In addition to Ling Jihua, in 2015, Zhou Yongkang, head of State Security during Hu Jintao’s mandate, was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption. His purge included the prosecution of China’s top political leader since the trial of Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, and the “Gang of Four” for the misdeeds of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Both Zhou Yongkang and his family received bribes worth €19 million. His allies within the regime were also punished.
Among them was his protégé Bo Xilai, sentenced to life in prison for corruption in 2013 and whose wife had been sentenced to death a year earlier – but suspended – for the murder of the British partner who helped them achieve the fortune they had made. had amassed the country with politics. Bo Xilai was one of the most prominent figures in the regime. His arrest sparked a bitter power struggle between Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. Behind him rolled the heads of his political godfather, Zhou Yongkang, and his ally Xu Caihou, former “number two” of the Chinese military. A year later, another vice president of the Central Military Commission was also sentenced to life in prison for corruption.
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Source: La Verdad
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