Beijing investigates two more associates of ex-security chief

SHANGHAI — Two more officials with links to retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, have come under investigation by the authorities, reported the Chinese media.

Mr Zhao Miao, a senior government official in Chengdu, the capital of the south-western province of Sichuan, is under investigation for “severe discipline violations”, a term often used as a euphemism for corruption, the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief report on Saturday.

Mr Zhao is a standing committee member of the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Xinhua said. He was taken away on Thursday for questioning by anti-corruption investigators. Xinhua gave no other details of the investigation into him.

Meanwhile, the authorities are also investigating Mr Yan Cunzhang, the manager of the Foreign Co-operation Department of China National Petroleum Corporation, China’s largest energy company, the South China Morning Post reported.

A report on Saturday by the Caixin news website said he was also taken away by the authorities last week.

President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping crackdown on corruption since taking power, warning that the problem is a threat to the Communist Party’s survival.

Mr Zhou, 71, is the most senior politician to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communist Party swept to power in 1949. The former Sichuan party boss has been under virtual house arrest since the authorities began formally investigating him last year.

Using Sichuan as his power base, Mr Zhou rose through the ranks of China’s oil and gas sector before joining the elite Politburo Standing Committee in 2007, where as domestic security chief, his budget exceeded defence spending.

He retired in 2012 and was last seen at an alumni event at the China University of Petroleum on Oct 1.

Several of his political allies have been held in custody and questioned over corruption, including former Vice-Minister of Public Security Li Dongsheng and Mr Jiang Jiemin, who was the top regulator of state-owned enterprises for only five months until September.

Last week, Mr Guo Yongxiang, a former aide to Mr Zhou, was expelled from the ruling party and stripped of his public office for “serious law and discipline violations”, said the party’s anti-graft watchdog.

Mr Guo worked with Mr Zhou in Sichuan for at least 12 years and eventually rose to be a Vice-Provincial Governor.

The government has not made any official statements about Mr Zhou or those with ties to him under investigation.

Mr Zhou was a patron of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in September for corruption and abuse of power in the worst political scandal since the 1976 downfall of the Gang of Four, led by the widow of former leader Mao Zedong at the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Separately, Xinhua reported that Shen Weichen, party secretary and Executive Vice-President of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), had been placed under investigation for suspected corruption.

As China’s largest national organisation for scientific and technological workers, CAST maintains close ties with millions of scientists, engineers and other people working in science and technology, said its website.

Agencies