In China, the former boss of the Everbright banking group was arrested “ the last days », indicated Monday January 15 the Chinese authorities. Suspected of having accepted bribes and embezzled public funds, Tang Shuangning is now part of a long line of financial sector figures caught in the net of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde
The watchword in China seems to be “ watch the bosses fall “, or rather the ex-bosses retired, in the case of Tang Shuangning: at 69 years old, he was forced to surrender his Chinese Communist Party card at the beginning of the month. Everyone then understood that things were scorching for the former manager of the Chinese banking group Everbright, a financial heavyweight belonging to the Chinese state which, in 2022, employed more than 47,000 employees.
Calligraphy skills
The former chairman of the board of directors of Everbrigth between 2007 and 2017 was once praised by state media for his talents in calligraphy. But Mr. Tang is now accused of having “ given over to a life of pleasure and comfort » and to have “ abandoned one’s responsibilities “, which would have prevented the company from preventing financial risks. He also allegedly used public funds to travel, introduced books not authorized in China and received bribes.
This new arrest, ordered “ the last days » by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, follows a massacre in high finance circles. Last month, Sun Guofeng, former head of the Central Bank’s monetary policy department, was sentenced to sixteen years and six months in prison for bribery and disclosing state secrets.
In October, Liu Lange, the former president of the Bank of China, was arrested on charges of corruption and granting illegal loans. That same month, Tang’s successor at Everbright, Li Xiaopengwas also arrested for the same reasons.