China investigates former aide of Vice-President Wang Qishan for alleged corruption
- Government inspector investigated over ‘suspected serious violation of laws and party rules’
- Dong Hong worked with Wang from 1998 until the latter stepped down as anti-graft tsar three years ago
Dong Hong, who himself is a former senior disciplinary inspector for the central government, was under investigation for “suspected serious violation of laws and party rules”, according to a terse statement by the National Supervisory Commission (NSC), the country’s top anti-graft watchdog.
Dong was one of the group leaders of central inspection groups during Xi’s first term, when Wang was head of powerful anti-corruption agency the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI) and spearheaded Xi’s unprecedented anti-graft drive. The CCDI later expanded to become a corruption super-watchdog, the NSC.
Some past media reports about Dong, as well as his biography on Baike, China’s equivalent of Wikipedia, were no longer accessible by late Friday afternoon.
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State-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao reported in 2014 that Dong had a long-term working relationship with Wang beginning in 1998, sharing stints in Guangdong, Hainan and Beijing, and at the now defunct State Council General Office of Economic Reform.
Chinese news outlet Caixin said that although Dong had worked in Guangdong since 1992, he was promoted to be the provincial government’s deputy secretary general only in 2000, around the time Wang left Guangdong.