Xi’an official in trouble for receiving temple donation for son studying in US

The head of Xi’an City Bureau of Religious Affairs is under probe after his son was found to have received donation from a Taoist temple in 2013.

A Sina Weibo user with more than 366,000 followers posted Tuesday screen grabs of the official website of Mingsheng Temple which showed 20,000 yuan ($3128) had been donated on August 25, 2013 to Li Shemin’s son to pay his tuition fee in the US.

A bureau official surnamed Yao said Li had written an explanation and the bureau filed reports with the Communist Party of China’s Xi’an Committee, government and discipline inspection commission, Yao was quoted as saying by news website btime.com.

The temple had set up a Mingsheng Merit Foundation in 2012, guancha.cn reported.

The screen grab showed the donations made were published on its official website on May 16, 2016, which was not accessible as of press time.

The published donation account could be a mistake because employees sometimes make typos when putting data onto the website, Ren Daoquan, custodian of the foundation, told guancha.cn.

It was impossible for the foundation to make a donation to Li’s son because donors check the account every year to make sure it is transparent, Ren added.

Ren took charge of the foundation in 2017 and needed to check the account before giving further response, said guancha.cn.