China’s powerful to be purged

Beijing: According to a report in The Atlantic, for the second time in the young presidency of Xi Jinping, a major Chinese official is on the verge of formal indictment for the charge of corruption.

As per the report,  Reuters on Sunday reported that Chinese officials had seized $14.5 billion in assets from individuals tied to Zhou Yongkang, a retired official who has been described as China’s most powerful man.

Mr Zhou himself has not yet been charged with a crime, but his conviction and incarceration are all but assured; in China’s justice system, verdicts are mostly determined before trials even begin, the report said.

Mr Zhou, who up until 2012 controlled China’s vast internal security portfolio, with a budget exceeding that for national defence, will arguably be the most important official purged in the history of the People’s Republic.

The Atlantic revealed that the official reason is corruption. Raised in a village near Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, the 71-year-old Zhou rose thr-ough the ranks of China’s oil industry, becoming chairman of China’s National Petroleum Corporation in 1996.

Successively important government posts followed, and by 2007 Mr Zhou had earned one of the nine seats on the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s highest governing body.

In 2013, Xi Jinping became President and political winds in China changed and Mr Zhou became a scapegoat of the situation.