BEIJING, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Yang Weize, the Communist party chief of the city of Nanking, China, is the latest to be accused of corruption.
He was removed from his position, the state-run news agency Xinhua announced Thursday, for alleged "serious discipline and law violations," the Chinese media code words for corruption. China has seen a concentration of removals from office of hundreds of party, and government and business leaders since president Xi Jinping began a drive to combat graft and corruption in 2012.
Chinese media circulated a report Yang was connected to Zhou Yongkang, former head of Chinese domestic security arrested in December on charges of corruption and release of state secrets, and that Yang committed adultery with unidentified Chinese television news anchors, the New York Times reported Thursday. Adultery is a "violation of socialist morality," the investigative Chinese Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has said, although not illegal.
Businesses involved in China's boom industries, notably real estate, mining and aviation, are coming under increasing scrutiny in the corruption crackdown. China Southern Airlines recently said four of its executives were dismissed, and under investigation for "job-related crimes."
"The Chinese authorities have generally focused their investigations on sectors where power has been concentrated in the hands of a small number of state-owned enterprises. Aviation is one such sector," Daniel Roules, of the U.S. law firm Squire Patton Boggs told the newspaper South China Morning Post.
The coal industry was targeted in 2014 by Chinese investigators.
"Natural resources are owned by the state. There is a lot of competition to get licenses from the government, and lots of pressure to give bribes. The amounts involved are also huge," Julian Russell of the Hong Kong consultant firm Pacific Risk told the South China Morning Post.
