East China Official Who Dangled Job Promotions Jailed Eight Years for Bribery

A former local government publicity official in East China’s Jiangxi province has been jailed for eight years for taking bribes worth more than 15 million yuan ($2.3 million) to influence job promotions, a journal affiliated with China’s corruption watchdog reported Friday.

By accepting the bribes over a period of 18 years, Zhu Yingfu interfered in staffing by lobbying for dozens of people to get promotions and alternately attempting to block certain appointments, the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection (CCDI) journal revealed (link in Chinese).

Zhu, 60, was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from public office in June last year for “serious violations of discipline and laws.”

A former official of the Communist Party publicity department in county-level city Guixi, under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Yingtan, he started his 35-year career at the department in 1985 and was placed under investigation in 2020.

The official probe found that Zhu had lobbied for more than 60 individuals to be promoted to mid-level positions between 1998 and 2015, according to the journal article. Some 85 officials involved in Zhu’s case were also punished, it said.

The case came as the country’s sweeping anticorruption campaign has ensnared more than 2 million people since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, according to government figures.

Specifically, Zhu used his position to help four officials get promoted in Guixi and Yingtan, and accepted bribes worth nearly 90,000 yuan in total, according to a recent statement (link in Chinese) issued by Yingtan’s anti-corruption watchdog.

Among the officials, Feng Yongzhong, a member of the Communist Party committee and deputy head of Guixi police, gained three promotions from 2003 to 2012 with the help of Zhu and paid him 50,000 yuan, the notice said. Feng was detained in March after being placed under investigation.

At the same time, Zhu helped five village officials get their appointments by “greeting” higher-level officials in towns, and accepting their envelopes bearing thousands of yuan in cash and cigarettes, according to a separate statement (link in Chinese) issued by the local party disciplinary body in March.

In 2012, Zhu again lobbied for one of his friends to be appointed as a bureau deputy head in Yingtan. But a year later, he slandered the person’s ability to his leader due to their broken friendship, causing the person to lose his job, the statement said.

Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com)

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