China Purges Top Official Over Corruption and Sex Charges
Ma Xingrui is the third member of the Politburo to be purged since 2022. He once led the Xinjiang region and was previously head of China’s space program.
The Chinese Communist Party on Tuesday expelled Ma Xingrui, one of its most senior officials, accusing him of corruption and abusing his power for favors and sex.
Mr. Ma, a former party secretary for China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, is now the third member of the top governing Politburo to be ousted from office as China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, directs his anti-corruption drive toward the uppermost levels of his government.
Mr. Ma’s expulsion represents a downfall from the highest echelons of power in China. For many years he was one of the country’s most promising political elites, making his mark as an engineer and scientist.
His ouster from the Politburo points to the deepest purge of the top political body since Deng Xiaoping put in place new rules that have governed modern China since the 1980s. The Politburo is now down to 21 members following the expulsion of He Weidong and Zhang Youxia, both military officials.
“It used to be that if you reached the rank of Politburo it would have to be something very, very, very serious before you were taken down,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “This was changed by Xi. Now, Politburo members drop like bowling pins.”
“By taking a number of them down, he is sending out a clear message: ‘Behave and do what you are told.’”
Antigraft officials placed Mr. Ma under investigation in April. The authorities said on Tuesday they discovered that he had “severely violated political discipline” and was suspected of committing acts of bribery and of “large-scale family corruption.”
Mr. Ma, 66, is accused of improperly accepting money and other gifts, helping relatives to buy homes at discounted prices, as well as participating in “power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions,” according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s anti-corruption watchdog.
He also was found to have “illegally accepted huge sums of money and property” through relatives and associates, the announcement said, without going into specifics.
It described the case as “extremely serious” and said he was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from public office. The authorities have confiscated what they described as his ill-gotten gains. His criminal case was now in the hands of the prosecutors, according to the statement.
Mr. Ma first made a mark in the state-dominated aerospace sector where he rose to become a senior executive at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the country’s missile and spacecraft manufacturer.
Once lauded as “the young marshal of the aerospace industry” by People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, Mr. Ma was credited with helping to build and launch China’s first oceanographic satellite. He also oversaw the launch of dozens of space satellites and several of China’s most ambitious manned space missions.
He later rose through the ranks of politics to oversee the far western region of Xinjiang, where Western officials and human rights groups have said China used state-sponsored labor programs to coerce Uyghurs and other minorities into factory work. In 2022, during his tenure, a deadly fire in the capital city of Urumqi set off protests across the country over the strict pandemic policies that had hampered rescue efforts.
Weeks after the protests, which were seen as the biggest public challenge to Mr. Xi’s leadership, the government dismantled its harsh zero Covid policies.
Last year, Zhang Jianhua, one of Mr. Ma’s subordinates from the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, was investigated and expelled from the party for “accepting gifts and money” and using his position to “seek benefits for his relatives.” Guo Yonghang, another subordinate from Mr. Ma’s time working in the southern city of Shenzhen, was expelled from the party in March and accused of “serious violations of discipline and law.”
Murphy Zhao contributed reporting.
Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society.
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