Liu Yingxia falls from grace because of her close ties with Jiang Jiemin, a former president of the China National Petroleum Corp and a crony of former security czar Zhou Yongkang. In less than a year, Xi Jinping has had 21 top officials arrested for corruption. According to several experts, Zhou is the campaign's real target, but his fate is waiting for the final pieces of evidence.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - A corruption scandal has once again touched a ranking Communist official. Liu Yingxia, one of China's 50 richest people with assets worth 4 billion yuan (about US$ 650 million), was expelled from the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which, together with the National People's Congress, constitutes China's legislative branch of government.

Liu fell from grace because of her close ties to Jiang Jiemin, a former president of the China National Petroleum Corp who was arrested in September for a serious violation "discipline," a euphemism used by the party's watchdog in cases of corruption.

Described as the most fascinating member of Chinese politics, she is well known in China's business world.

At the age of 20, she founded a company in the northeastern city of Harbin that now operates in the property and road construction sectors.

Married to the son of a high-ranking military officer, she invested in a 110-billion-yuan oil pipeline project in 2012 with the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

Jiang Jiemin, who is connected to former national security czar Zhou Yongkang, was present at the signing. Zhou himself has come under closer scrutiny by the authorities.

Since Xi Jinping took power in March 2013, 21 high-ranking officials have been arrested, six of them Zhou's protégés.

On Wednesday, Zhou's right-hand man for ten years, Ji Wenlin was also taken into custody along with Guo Yongxiang, a former vice governor of Sichuan, and Li Dongsheng, a former Deputy Minister of Public Security.

China's national press has jumped on the affair with a series of investigations, which revealed a "web of graft" created by Zhou loyalists.

Although he has not been directly named in connection with these cases, the media close to the party (or controlled by Communist officials) have extensively reported on the arrests and the investigations involving officials who used to be secretaries of "a certain senior official".

According to several experts, Xi Jinping is just waiting to have "overwhelming evidence" before launching an attack against Zhou.

• china
• corruption
• graft
• liu
• xinghia
• zhou
• yongkangji
• wenlin
• xi
• jinping