Anti-corruption drive snares party official

BEIJING – A promise by China’s new leaders to tackle corruption has claimed its first major scalp: the deputy Communist Party chief of Sichuan.

Li Chuncheng, 56 has been put under investigation and has not been seen in public since Nov. 19, reports Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.

Li was the second most senior official in the central Chinese province of 80 million people and after a promotion last month was one of 171 alternate members of the Central Committee, one of the highest organs in the party.

It isn’t clear what crime he may have committed, but his detention follows the arrest in August of Dai Xiaoming, the chairman of the Chengdu Industry Investment Group, on suspicion of bribing government officials in Chengdu, where Li was once party chief.

Dai and Li were both involved in a controversial project by Sinopec, the Chinese oil company, to build an $11-billion petrochemical plant on the outskirts of Chengdu.

Another Chinese leader, Zhou Yongkang, was involved in the project in his time as Sichuan’s party secretary.

“Other government officials in Chengdu did not agree with it, but they were gagged and public complaints were suppressed,” said Ai Nanshan, a former Sichuan university professor who campaigned against the plant. “The local newspapers did not even dare to report that it had gone into operation this year.”

Zhou’s ties to Li raise the possibility that the anti-corruption drive may be part of a new factional battle. Zhou was a supporter of the disgraced former politburo member Bo Xilai.