Xi Jinping's campaign against corruption, seen by many as a cover to eliminate internal enemies, continues to claim illustrious victims. This time it is Wang Yujun and Zhang Xinming, who allegedly made money by buying and selling overpriced coalmines. For the head of China's Supreme People's Court, Zhou Yongkang's fall "fully illustrates that in socialist China no power exists outside the cage of the system".

Beijing (AsiaNews) - Chinese authorities detained China Resources Power president and a Shanxi tycoon, a major Shanxi Province industrialist and one of China's coal kings.

CRP announced last night that Wang Yujun, 49, the company's executive director, was under investigation by prosecutors in Jiangsu province.

Zhang Xinming - once the richest man in Shanxi with estimated assets valued at 4 billion yuan (HK billion) - has been in custody since earlier this month.

Zhang founded Shanxi Jinye Coking Coal, the company at the centre of a controversial deal. In 2012, CRP paid Zhang's company 7.9 billion yuan to buy three coalmines and related assets.

However, minority CRP shareholders launched a lawsuit last year against former and current CRP directors, including Song Lin, a disgraced former head of CRP's parent company who is also under investigation for corruption, alleging that the mines were bought at an inflated price.

"Zhang's detention is most definitely tied to the deal [. . .] with China Resources," said shareholder activist Li Jianjun.

The arrests are part of a campaign launched by President Xi Jinping against corruption in the Party and in state-owned industries.

Praised by state media as the main reform of the last decade, the campaign is considered by various analysts as a good way for the president to remove his personal enemies.

Undoubtedly, Zhou Yongkang is one of the latter. A former powerful "national security czar" for more than ten years, Zhou was China's most feared political leader. On 29 July of this year, he was taken into custody after a series of investigations against his loyalists.

The investigation "fully illustrates that in socialist China no power exists outside the cage of the system, and party members will never be allowed outside party discipline and national laws", Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

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