Like several fallen high-ranking officials, they are all suspected of this crime, and two central management cadres have been expelled from party work | positions | two
Two retired central management cadres who fell from office on the same day on January 6th this year were both given disciplinary notices six months later.
On the afternoon of July 6th, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission simultaneously released two messages: Wang Xuefeng, former member of the Party Group and Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial People's Congress, and He Zehua, former member of the Party Group and Deputy Director of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration, were both expelled from the Party due to serious violations of discipline and law, and were transferred to the procuratorial organs for examination and prosecution in accordance with the law.
Several "old colleagues" have fallen from grace
Wang Xuefeng had already retired for 5 years when he was investigated. He was born in November 1954 and is from Yongnian, Hebei. He has been working in Hebei for 47 years and has served in the disciplinary inspection and supervision system for a long time. He also served as the director of the Hebei Provincial Bureau of Corruption Prevention.
In his early years, Wang Xuefeng worked in his hometown of Yongnian County for 21 years, from a worker in an ironworks to the deputy secretary of the county party committee.
In his early years, he worked as a worker at the Matou Ironmaking Plant in Handan City for 3 years. Later, he entered the Metallurgical Department of Hebei Mining and Metallurgy University to study ironmaking. After graduation, he returned to the ironmaking plant and became a technical cadre. Two years later, he joined the office of the Yongnian County Committee and became the deputy secretary of the county committee within 8 years. He also served as the county magistrate of Guantao County, the county magistrate of Handan County, and the county party secretary. Starting from 2001, Wang Xuefeng served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection. In 2004, he became the Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection. In 2007, he also served as the Director of the Provincial Supervision Department. The following year, he became the Executive Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and successively held positions such as Director of the Provincial Supervision Department and Director of the Provincial Bureau of Corruption Prevention.
After working at the Discipline Inspection Commission of Hebei Province for 9 years, Wang Xuefeng was appointed as the Secretary of the Tangshan Municipal Party Committee in 2010. Three years later, he was transferred to the position of Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress and stepped down in 2018.
The notice pointed out that Wang Xuefeng seriously violated the Party's organizational discipline, integrity discipline, and life discipline, constituted serious violations of his duties, and was suspected of accepting bribes and using his influence to commit bribery crimes. He also did not restrain himself or stop after the 18th National Congress of the Party, with a serious nature and a bad impact, and should be dealt with seriously.
Wang Xuefeng was accused of soliciting votes and bribery, buying and selling officials on a large scale, seriously damaging the local political ecology, and falsifying information in the recruitment of officials to seek benefits for his relatives. At the same time, he also lost his ideals and beliefs, abandoned his original aspiration and mission, ignored the spirit of the central eight point regulations, illegally accepted other people's travel activity arrangements, visited private clubs for banquets, and borrowed vehicles from management service recipients for a long time; Lack of organizational principles, failure to truthfully explain issues during organizational conversations, and failure to report personal matters in accordance with regulations; Accepting large gift money; Without any awareness of discipline and law, using public power as a tool for personal gain, engaging in power and money transactions, using the convenience of their positions to seek benefits for others in terms of promotion, job adjustment, enterprise operation, etc., and illegally accepting huge amounts of property.
During Wang Xuefeng's tenure as the Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, two colleagues in the leadership team of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress were successively arrested. In April and December 2017, Yang Chongyong and Zhang Jiehui were investigated, and the amount of bribes they received amounted to more than 206 million yuan and 127 million yuan, respectively. After Wang Xuefeng retired, he also had two former colleagues of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress fall from grace, namely Song Taiping, who served as deputy director from 2012 to 2018, and Xie Jilai, who served as deputy director from 2011 to 2017.
Wang Xuefeng was the "first tiger" in Hebei Province after the closing of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. In addition, since the 19th National Congress, multiple "tigers" have been investigated in Hebei Province. In addition to the five former deputy directors of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress mentioned above, there are also former vice chairman of the Provincial Political Consultative Conference, Ai Wenli, former deputy governor Li Qian, and former standing committee member and deputy governor Zhang He.
A typical example of "relying on smoking to eat"
He Zehua, a former party member and deputy director of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration who was also reported to Wang Xuefeng at the same time, had also retired for nearly 9 years when he was dismissed.
According to public information, He Zehua is from Shuyang, Jiangsu. He had previously worked in the military in Siyang County, Jiangsu Province for 5 years, and later worked in Siyang Cotton Textile Factory and Siyang Silk Textile Factory, rising from a worker to factory director. He entered the tobacco system in 1991 and successively served as the factory director and party secretary of Huaiyin Cigarette Factory, director, manager, and party secretary of Huaiyin Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, and deputy director, deputy manager, and party member of Jiangsu Tobacco Monopoly Bureau.
After briefly serving as the Party Secretary of Hefei University of Economics and Technology in 1998, He Zehua became the Party Secretary of Anhui Tobacco Monopoly Bureau in January 2000, and later concurrently served as the General Manager of Anhui Tobacco Industry Company. In July 2003, He Zehua served as the Deputy Director of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration and stepped down in 2014.
The notice pointed out that He Zehua seriously violated the political discipline, organizational discipline, integrity discipline, and life discipline of the Party, constituted serious violations of his duties, and was suspected of accepting bribes and using his influence to commit bribery crimes. He also did not restrain or stop after the 18th National Congress of the Party, with a serious nature and a bad impact, and should be dealt with seriously.
From the announcement, it can be seen that He Zehua, who has been working in the tobacco system for a long time, can be regarded as a typical example of "relying on cigarettes to eat cigarettes". His multiple violations of discipline and law are closely related to the tobacco industry, such as being accused of using public tools for personal gain, alienating his public power and tobacco resources into tools for personal gain, accepting banquets arranged by private owners of the tobacco system, engaging in power and money transactions, using his position to facilitate promotion, employee recruitment, tobacco business contracting, and illegally accepting huge amounts of property for others. He was also criticized for his "selfish desires and greed", not only for illegally operating businesses for a long time to obtain huge economic benefits, but also for using his original position to influence his relatives for profit after retirement. In recent years, He Zehua has been the first to use the term "greedy behavior" in the notification of disciplinary officials.
In addition, He Zehua was also accused of losing his ideals and beliefs, abandoning his original mission, being disloyal and dishonest to the party, and deliberately resisting organizational censorship; Ignoring the spirit of the central eight point regulations, illegally participating in public funded banquets, violating organizational principles, seeking benefits for others and accepting property in the selection and appointment of cadres.
He Zehua is the third member of the former leadership team of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration to fall from grace in recent years.
In May 2021, Pan Jiahua, former member of the Party Group of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration and former head of the disciplinary inspection team dispatched by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration, was investigated. He was born in 1952 and had also retired for 9 years when he was investigated. He entered the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration in 2006 and stepped down in 2012. According to the report, during his tenure at the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration, Pan Jiahua "relied on tobacco to eat tobacco" and helped private enterprise owners in the tobacco industry seek personal gain. He arranged multiple relatives and friends to work in the tobacco system, condoned relatives using their position to influence illegal gains in the tobacco system, used their position to facilitate business operations for others, and illegally received huge amounts of property.
In February 2019, Zhao Hongshun, Deputy Director of the National Tobacco Monopoly Administration, was investigated for taking advantage of his position to seek benefits for others in terms of promotion, colluding with illegal private entrepreneurs, engaging in power and money transactions, and seriously damaging the political ecology of the tobacco system. In the end, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting bribes of over 90.32 million yuan.
What are the special features of this charge, which is also known as "bribery"?
In addition to being suspected of bribery, both Wang Xuefeng and He Zehua have disclosed in their reports that they are also involved in another criminal act - using their influence to take bribes.
What is the crime of bribery through the use of influence? What is the difference between bribery through influence and general bribery? The website layer of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has issued a special article to explain.
Li Zhongmin, a professor and doctoral student in criminal law at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, introduced in the article that in recent years, the spouses, children, and other close relatives of some state officials, as well as other people closely related to state officials, have used the actions of state officials in their positions, or the convenience conditions formed by the powers or positions of state officials, to seek improper benefits for the requester through the actions of other state officials in their positions, and it is not obvious that they have solicited or received property from them. At the same time, some former national staff members, although no longer holding the status of national staff, use the influence they have formed during their tenure to seek improper benefits for their clients through the actions of other national staff members, and demand or accept property from them.
The article points out that the above-mentioned behaviors have corrupted the party, government, and social conduct, and have a very negative social impact. Therefore, the Amendment to the Criminal Law adds a new article after Article 388 of the Criminal Law as one of Article 388, which separately defines the behavior of close relatives or other persons closely related to state employees who use the influence of their positions to solicit bribes, as well as the behavior of departing state employees or their close relatives and other persons closely related to them, as the crime of taking bribes through influence.
The difference between the crime of accepting bribes through influence and the crime of accepting bribes lies first in the difference in the subject. The subject of the crime of accepting bribes through influence is the close relatives or other persons closely related to a specific country's staff member, the resigned country's staff member or their close relatives, and other persons closely related to them, while the subject of the crime of accepting bribes is the country's staff member himself.
Secondly, the perpetrator of the crime of bribery through influence is not using their own position to facilitate bribery, but first using the convenient conditions formed by the power or status of closely related state officials, and then accepting bribes through the actions of other state officials in their positions. In the crime of bribery, state officials directly use the convenience conditions formed by their own power or position to solicit or illegally accept the property of others, seeking benefits for others.
In recent years, it has not been uncommon for "tigers" to be accused of using their influence to commit bribery crimes, such as Xu Ming, former Deputy Director of the State Grain Administration, Xue Heng, former Vice Chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Cai Esheng, former Vice Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Sun Yuanliang, former Vice Chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Hu Yifeng, former President of the Inner Mongolia High Court.
