With the arrests of two high-ranking executives at China Unicom, the anti-corruption campaign that has swept through the Chinese Communist Party over the past two years has now begun targeting the telecommunications sector. In China, politics creates business opportunities, and changes in the political scene bring changes to business.
The first official to go was Zhang Zhijiang, Unicom’s general manager of network construction, on Dec. 15. A notice by Xinhua said he was being investigated by anti-corruption authorities for “violations of discipline.” Then on Dec. 18, Zong Xinhua, general manager of the IT and e-commerce unit, was thrown out—again, under investigation, presumably for graft.
China Central Television also recently accused China Mobile, one of the largest state-run telecommunications firms, of “robbery”—a pointed political accusation of a firm that has long had links to the political tribe of former paramount leader Jiang Zemin.
If this campaign unfolds as others have, these arrests may be the prologue to the targeting of the most prominent figures in the sector, in particular Jiang’s elder son, Jiang Mianheng.
The anti-corruption campaign has been unprecedented in scope. The Xinhua News Agency claimed in June some 80,000 officials had been investigated. In October, it published a list of 55 high-ranking officials who had been cashiered, with close associates of Jiang Zemin dominating that list.
When the campaign goes after someone, it tends to cast a wide net, and all of the target’s associates are investigated, starting at the outside and working relentlessly toward the center.
When the anti-corruption forces unleashed by Party head Xi Jinping targeted former security chief and top Jiang Zemin ally Zhou Yongkang, they first took down his associates in the security apparatus, the petrochemical sector—where Zhou first gained power and wealth, and in Sichuan Province, his first power base.
Before former second-in-command of China’s military and Jiang ally Xu Caihou was purged and arrested, there were a series of arrests in the military, including of close Xu subordinates such as Gu Junshan.
The arrests of Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou were earthquakes on the Chinese political scene. A former Politburo Standing Committee member like Zhou was thought to be untouchable and Xu Caihou had been a dominant figure in the country’s military.
But a move against Jiang Mianheng would be even bigger, because he is Jiang Zemin’s son.
Whether Jiang Mianheng will eventually be put in handcuffs and paraded through a courtroom is not yet clear. But just as politics rapidly swept up Jiang Mianheng to prominence in business, now the changing of the political tides seems sure to sweep him out.
‘Hidden Rules’
During the 1990s, the chief of the Communist Party was Jiang Zemin. And as the telecommunications industry went through reform and built sophisticated telephone and fiber optic networks across the country, Jiang made sure that his eldest son, Jiang Mianheng, got a front seat on the action.
In the overseas Chinese-language press, which is free to report on the economic adventures of Chinese officials and their family members, Jiang Mianheng is often known as China’s “Telecommunications King,” because of his extensive interests and control in the industry.
