China executes former Communist Party official in £324m corruption case

China has executed a regional official of the Communist Party over a 3bn yuan (£324m) scam as president Xi Jinping’s campaign to eradicate corruption from the political system intensifies.

Mr Xi, who has been in power for over a decade, has launched a crackdown on corruption involving party members who have failed to implement government policies in accordance with the law. They include both high-ranking “tigers” and lowly “flies”.

Li Jianping, former party chief of an economic development zone in Inner Mongolia’s Hohhot city, was executed on Tuesday following his last meeting with his family, Xinhua reported.

The 64-year-old received a death sentence in September 2022 in one of the most high-profile corruption cases in the country for embezzling money, taking bribes, misusing funds, and working with a criminal syndicate.

Li filed an appeal against his sentence but lost it in August and the death sentence was then approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Mongolia.

The court ruled that Li’s crimes were extremely severe due to the exceptionally large sums of money he had embezzled and received as bribes and that the nature of the offences had a widespread negative social impact.

This is one of the rare cases of a Chinese official being executed on graft charges. Those handed a death penalty are usually given a two-year reprieve from execution and their sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment for good behaviour.

The execution came on the same day as Mr Xi’s speech urging party officials to "turn the knife inward" to root out problems of discipline, including corruption, was released.

The speech made by Mr Xi in a major meeting with the party’s anti-graft watchdog on 8 January was only released on Tuesday. It had not been disclosed previously.

“As the situation and tasks facing the party change, there will inevitably be all kinds of conflicts and problems within the party,” he said.

“We must have the courage to turn the knife inward and eliminate their negative impact in a timely manner to ensure that the party is always full of vigour and vitality.”

Despite his push to weed out corrupt officials, the Community Party has remained plagued by corruption, especially the defence forces.

The party has sacked two former defence ministers in the past two years as allegations of corruption raised concerns over the military’s readiness for war.

In the latest case, the defence ministry disclosed that Admiral Miao Hua, a long-time Xi loyalist who had served on the Central Military Commission, the country’s highest military command body, was under investigation for "serious violations of discipline".

General Li Shangfu, who was defence minister in 2023, was removed seven months into the job for allegedly taking bribes in exchange for granting favours in violation of military and party discipline.

Wei Fenghe was defence minister for five years prior to that, until he was placed under investigation for “seriously violating political and organisational discipline by helping others gain improper benefits in personnel arrangements”.

Last year, about 610,000 party officials were punished for violating party discipline, of which 49 were officials above the vice minister or governor level, according to data from the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.