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China Snares Biggest Tiger Yet With Probe of Zhou


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china-starts-probe-into-former-security-chief-zhou-yongkang-1-.html?utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=44ecf20bfa-Sinocism07_29_14&utm_mediuBloomberg:

Bloomberg News

Jul 29, 2014

 

China’s ruling Communist Party announced an investigation into former security czar Zhou Yongkang, escalating an 18-month campaign against graft with the highest level corruption probe of its 65 years in power.

 

A member of the party’s most powerful Politburo Standing Committee until November, 2012, Zhou had not been seen in public since October. He was an ally of Bo Xilai, the ex-Chongqing party secretary who was convicted of bribery and abuse of power and sentenced to life behind bars last year.

 

The move, announced via the state-run Xinhua News Agency, represents a tightening grip on power by President Xi Jinping, who took over the Communist Party in the leadership change-over that saw Zhou, 71, retire, and consolidated control over the military and a panel on economic reforms. It marks Xi’s boldest move yet in an anti-graft campaign that’s nabbed dozens of regional cadres, ex-military officers, employees at state-owned enterprises and senior ministers.

 

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H/T The Feed


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  • 6 months later...

Xi’s Purge Getting Close To Jiang

Walter Russell Mead

Feb. 27 2015

 

Signs are growing that the intensifying party purge in China will claim one of Jiang Zemin’s close aides. The Financial Times:

 

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Bo Xilai couldn’t have done any better—or reached higher.

 

The underlying problem is the old system of collective leadership in China—in which the top leaders left each other alone and nobody had too much power—was put in to restrain central power after Mao’s terrifying abuses. However, with all the top leaders and their closest aides more-or-less immune from prosecution, corruption at the highest levels became entrenched.

 

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And so we see what we see: Xi is very much in charge, the purge is continuing, and power in China is increasingly concentrated in the hands of one man. Let’s hope he’s a nice guy.

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Xi’s Purge Getting Close To Jiang

Walter Russell Mead

Feb. 27 2015

 

 

 

And so we see what we see: Xi is very much in charge, the purge is continuing, and power in China is increasingly concentrated in the hands of one man. Let’s hope he’s a nice guy.

Re-monopolizing China's Industry

Gordon G. Chang

25 February 2015

 

The recent completion of two government-directed mergers in China’s energy and manufacturing sectors and other mergers now in the making suggest Beijing is reversing two decades of reform intended to make Chinese industry more efficient and competitive in local and global markets. The ongoing effort is certain to fail in the long term.

 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal last week, Beijing is contemplating two mergers of state oil giants: the China National Petroleum Corporation with China Petrochemical Corporation, better known as Sinopec,and China National Offshore Oil Corporation with Sinochem Group. The apparent goal is to increase China’s leverage in the global energy market. “We want to create a big Chinese brand to better compete overseas,”an informed official told the paper. He added, “We want our own ExxonMobil,” failing to note that these Chinese giants are already larger than ExxonMobil by various measures, including, most importantly, the size of balance sheet.

 

One or both combinations, if consummated, will come on the heels of other government-compelled mergers. One, announced last December, resulted in the consolidation of CSR Corporation and China CNR, the world’s biggest makers of trains. Ironically, these two companies were spin-offs from the same parent, the China National Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation. Xie Jilong, CNR’s board secretary, at the time stated the combination was initiated by Beijing, not the two firms.

 

Why the merger? The State Council, the cabinet of China’s central government, was upset that the two Chinese manufacturers competed against each other for the right to build 284 subway cars for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, in Boston. CNR won the competition last October with a bid that was about half of the highest bid and a quarter lower than the second-lowest bid, according to Lawrence Li of the banking firm UOB Kay Hian, speaking to the South China Morning Post.

 

(Snip)

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