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China sacks Olympic city Communist Party chief
2006-12-24
BEIJING - China has sacked the Communist Party boss of the northern coastal city of Qingdao, a host city for sailing events during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for "serious discipline violation", state media said on Sunday. Du Shicheng is the latest senior Chinese official to have fallen afoul of a wide-ranging Party probe into graft. Du had been Communist Party Secretary in Qingdao -- a magnet for South Korean and Japanese investment -- since June 2002. He served the dual role of mayor until January 2003. He was also deputy Party head for Shandong province, where Qingdao is located. "The Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is investigating Du's case," the official Xinhua news agency said in a terse report. "The commission found clues of Du's malpractice after receiving reports from the public during an official routine inspection," Xinhua added, without elaborating. "Du's sacking is another signal of the central government's hard stand against official malpractice and corruption," it said. His fall from grace appears to have happened suddenly. Du, 56, appeared in the official Qingdao Daily newspaper as recently as Friday in a report saying that he had chaired a government meeting and given a speech urging officials to implement President Hu Jintao's instructions on the economy. He has been replaced as Qingdao Party leader by Yan Qijun, also 56, president of the Shandong federation of trade unions, Xinhua said. Both are Shandong natives. In China's political system provincial or city Party bosses occupy a higher rung on the power ladder than governors or mayors. The Party can dismiss, investigate or even detain its members without reference to the formal legal system, though they may later be handed over to the courts for prosecution and jailing. The resort city of Qingdao is a former German concession, major port and the home base of Tsingtao beer, one of China's most well recognised brands, and appliance maker Haier. China is in the midst of a crackdown on official corruption, which the ruling Communist Party says is so widespread that it could threaten the Party's credibility. Earlier this month the Party expelled the disgraced former vice mayor of Beijing, Liu Zhihua, and judicial authorities launched criminal proceedings against him after he was found to have taken millions of yuan in bribes. Liu had been in charge of building venues for the Chinese capital's hosting of the Olympics. The anti-graft campaign also claimed the high-profile job of Shanghai's Party boss, Chen Liangyu, who was sacked in September after being implicated in a scandal involving the city's social security fund.
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