ues to deepen reforms in pursuit of steady
economic growth.
Li pointed out that it is crucial to prevent
financial risks and corruption and crack
down on violations by banks, such as fraudu-
lent loans, insider trading in the securities
market and insurance fraud. He added that
the authorities will relentlessly punish inter-
nal supervisors and company managers who
collude with big players in the market to steal
and sell secret information.
“Financial supervisors who violate the law
must be punished to serve as a warning to
others and maintain the proper order in the
financial sector,” Li said in his speech. Finan-
cial insiders and anti-graft experts noted that
this was a strong signal that the country has
started a new round of anti-graft campaigns
in the notoriously corrupt financial sector.
“The crackdown on financial corruption is
heading into deep water,” Li Yongzhong, for-
mer deputy head of the Chinese Discipline
Inspection Institute, told ChinaReport. He
said that the country’s anti-graft drive needs
to pay close attention to State-owned enter-
prises rather than just government bodies.
Monopoly of Power
Since the start of the year, a spate of finan-
cial corruption cases have been reported in-
cluding four major cases in April alone. On
April 9 when it was announced that Xiang
Junbo was under investigation, the Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection of
the Communist Party of China (CCDI), the
top anti-graft authority, also announced the
investigation of Li Changjun, former Party
chief and president of the Beijing Branch of
the Export-Import Bank of China, for sus-
pected serious violations of the Party’s code
of conduct. Four days later, Zhao Pinzhang,
former deputy governor of China Minsheng
Bank was put under official investigation
alongside a sub-branch head.
Corrupt activities and legal violations in
the financial sector have become common, at
a time when the sector is rife with monetary
risks, including bad assets, bond defaults,
shadow banking and illegal Internet financ-
ing. Statistics from the Supreme People’s
Procuratorate showed that from January
2014 to June 2015, 877 people in the sec-
tor were investigated for bribery or abuse of
power.
Those under investigation include both
“high-ranking officials” of regulatory organs
and “senior executives” of financial institu-tions. From May 2013 to May 2017, the
names of at least 34 people involved in finan-
cial corruption were disclosed on the CCDI
website, including 11 regulators, 10 people
from banks, four from insurance institutions
and seven from investment agencies. In an-
other survey conducted by the Legal Daily’s
Faren magazine, one third of 602 crimes
committed by entrepreneurs in 2016 were
related to investment and financing.
In the opinion of Yu Guodan, a lecturer
at the anti-graft and clean governance centre
of the China University of Political Science
and Law, financial corruption has drawn in a
huge number of people, and there are plenty
of crimes that are yet to surface. He argued
that besides the common crimes of bribe-
taking, embezzlement and bribery, economicThe business of some insurance companies is under strengthened scrutinyPhoto by cfp