Ex-Politburo member Ma Xingrui’s corruption charges extend to end of last century

Former Politburo member and Xinjiang Communist Party chief Ma Xingrui has been indicted on bribery charges dating back to the late 1990s, China’s state media reported on Thursday.

As one of the 24 members of the party’s highest decision-making bodies, the 67-year-old Ma is among the most senior Chinese officials investigated in the country’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign.

He is also the fourth Politburo member to have faced corruption charges since President Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012.

China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate designated a municipal People’s Procuratorate in Yichang city, in the central Chinese province of Hubei, to handle Ma’s prosecution after approving his arrest, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Local prosecutors recently filed bribery charges against Ma in the Yichang Intermediate People’s Court, it said.

Ma, a former aerospace engineer turned senior Communist Party official, rose through China’s space programme before becoming a provincial leader and eventually securing a seat on the party’s elite Politburo.

He held high-profile jobs including party chief of the country’s leading state-owned space company, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), as well as mayor of Shenzhen and then governor of Guangdong province in southern China.

Ma is also a former party chief of the western Xinjiang region.

The bribery charges against him stem from his career at CASC, starting in 1999, when he was the company’s deputy general manager, general manager and party chief, according to the CCTV report.

They also cover his political career in Shenzhen and Guangdong’s provincial party leadership, as well as his time as a Politburo member, it said.

CCTV reported that Ma took advantage during these periods of his career, “sought benefits for others” and “illegally accepted money and valuables worth an exceptionally large amount”.

Ma was placed under investigation for corruption in April. In July, he was stripped of his party membership, dismissed from public office and accused of “improperly accepting gifts and money, helping relatives buy houses at discounted prices” and engaging in “power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions”.

China’s top anti-corruption body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), in July said Ma was found to have “lost his ideals and beliefs” and abandoned “his political conviction”. He had “seriously violated [the party’s] political discipline and rules”.

The CCDI also said that Ma had condoned efforts by his relatives to profit from his influence, “fostering rampant corruption across his family”.

Guo Yonghang, a former top official of Guangdong province, widely seen as a “right-hand man” of Ma’s, has been dismissed from the party and public office for suspected bribery and other crimes, CCTV reported on Monday.

Guo was vice-chairman of the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – the country’s top political advisory body – before he was put under investigation in March.

He was Ma’s top aide when Ma was party secretary of Guangdong province’s tech hub Shenzhen from 2015 to 2016.