China’s Investigation of Ex-President’s Aide Marks New Phase in War on Corruption
Probe Into Ling Jihua Exposes One of Former President Hu Jintao’s Closest Allies
BEIJING—The Chinese Communist Party’s decision to investigate a onetime top aide to former President Hu Jintao has resurfaced old scandals and lifted the cloak that shielded the former leader’s closest allies from scrutiny.
The probe, disclosed late Monday, into whether Ling Jihua committed unspecified violations of party discipline opens a new chapter in President Xi Jinping ’s war on corruption.
As he seeks to uproot graft, Mr. Xi has used the campaign to bolster his own political power. In taking aim at a onetime ally of Mr. Hu, he is making a bet that could spark new discord among party elites, some political scholars said.
“So many people won’t be able to sleep,” said Zhang Lifan, a historian and expert on Chinese politics. “Anticorruption has from start to finish just been a slogan. It is still by nature a struggle for political power.”He added that Messrs. Hu and Xi ultimately were likely in agreement on the decision to put Mr. Ling under investigation.
Investigators in the coal-producing province of Shanxi, where Mr. Ling began his political rise, earlier detained a number of senior local officials including Ling Zhengce, who was later placed under investigation. Chinese media have described the Lings as brothers in a politically powerful familyrooted in Shanxi’s coal country.
In investigating Ling Jihua, the Communist Party is reopening old controversies. Those include the death in 2012 of Mr. Ling’s son in a late-night Ferrari accident on the snowy streets of Beijing. The accident and death of 23-year-old Ling Gu was reported in Chinese media and through social networks before being hushed by government censors. Some media reports from that time began reappearing online in China on Tuesday.
In his first two years as president, Mr. Xi has presented himself as a unifying figure for the Communist Party and the country, in the mold of former leader and reform architect Deng Xiaoping.
He has also used the campaign against corruption to purge potential rivals. This month, the party ousted Zhou Yongkang, China’s former security czar and once a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s most powerful body. That followed the conviction last year of Bo Xilai, the former leader in the city of Chongqing, once seen as a potential candidate for top party leadership.
Mr. Xi has also tackled elites in the military, bureaucracy and leading state-owned enterprises. On Tuesday, the party ousted Sun Zhaoxue, the former leader of metals giant Aluminum Corp. of China, after accusing him of taking bribes, abusing his post and adultery. The company had no comment, as Mr. Sun is no longer there, a company spokesman said.
The process will likely continue through the next several months and could set the stage for a major conclave of party leaders, the 19th Party Congress, in 2017. At that time, five of the Politburo Standing Committee’s seven members—all except Mr. Xi and Premier Li Keqiang —are due to retire, providing Mr. Xi a chance to populate China’s top leadership body with his allies.
At the height of his influence, Mr. Ling was in charge of the General Office of the party’s Central Committee. In that position, he was perhaps Mr. Hu’s closest aide, responsible for managing day-to-day affairs of top leaders. Mr. Ling was widely viewed as a strong candidate for promotion to the party’s Politburo, its roughly 25 top leaders, ahead of a once-a-decade party leadership transition in 2012.
The death of Mr. Ling’s son while driving a Ferrari—a trenchant symbol of official excess—emboldened opponents of Mr. Hu and complicated discussions of Mr. Bo’s fate.
Though questions over Mr. Ling’s future have long swirled in Chinese political circles, his fate remained unclear as recently as last week. Writing in a prominent party-theory magazine, Seeking Truth, Mr. Ling praised Mr. Xi’s leadership in an essay on ethnic unity in China. His essay has since been deleted from the magazine’s website.