Former Tibet Official Receives Suspended Death Sentence for Corruption

Wu Yingjie was among the highest-profile figures to fall from grace amid an anti-corruption campaign.

Wu Yingjie, Communist Party chief of Tibet, attends a meeting of the 19th Communist Party Congress in Beijing on Oct. 19, 2017. Etienne Oliveau/Getty Images

A former Chinese official, who the United States and Canada sanctioned for aiding the Communist Party’s human rights abuses, has been given a suspended death sentence for taking bribes.

Wu Yingjie, former Party chief in the far-western region of Tibet, was found guilty of taking approximately 343 million yuan ($47.8 million) in bribes while serving in various positions in Tibet between 2006 and 2021, according to a statement issued by the Supreme People’s Court, China’s highest court, on July 15.

Wu was given a death sentence with two years’ probation, and the authorities will confiscate his personal assets, the court said. This means that if Wu demonstrates good behavior over the next two years, his death sentence could be reduced to life imprisonment.

Wu, 68, was among the highest-profile figures to be purged under Xi Jinping, the Party’s top leader. Wu had been placed under investigation by the country’s top anti-corruption agency since July 2024.

In December 2024, Wu was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for so-called seriously violating the law and regulations, including meddling in engineering projects in exchange for cash bribes, state media reported at the time.

The harsh sentence adds to the signs that the CCP hasn’t eased the anti-corruption campaign, which was launched shortly after Xi took control of the Party in 2012. The campaign has taken down some of Xi’s most powerful rivals. However, in recent years, amid intensified power struggles within the party, it has also been directed against those within Xi’s inner circle.

Wu climbed the political ladder during his nearly 50 years in Tibet, starting in the educational bureau and later moving to the propaganda department. In 2005, he became a member of the Party committee, according to publicly available information in China.

His political career reached its peak in 2016, when he was appointed as Tibet’s Party secretary, a role he held for five years.

In 2021, Wu was appointed to the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, and subsequently served in the People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body.

As part of the actions to mark Human Rights Day, on Dec. 9, 2022, the United States imposed sanctions on Wu for his involvement in the CCP’s rights violations in Tibet, alongside another senior Chinese official, Zhang Hongbo.

The U.S. Treasury said at the time that Tibetans have been subject to serious human rights abuses in the region, including ”arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, and physical abuse,” as part of the CCP’s efforts to “severely restrict religious freedoms.”

In addition, the State Department announced sanctions against Tang Yong, former deputy director of Chongqing Area Prisons in southwestern China, in response to the CCP’s ongoing persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong.

The move drew the ire of Beijing. China’s foreign ministry announced sanctions against two Americans: Miles Yu, a key China policy adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Todd Stein, deputy director at the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

In December 2024, Canada added Wu and seven other Chinese officials to its sanctions list for their involvement in the CCP’s repressions against Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong practitioners.

Beijing retaliated by sanctioning 20 Canadian individuals and two organizations that have been vocal about the CCP’s human rights violations, drawing condemnation from Ottawa.