China’s top anti-corruption body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, announced on April 30, 2026, that Yi Huiman, the former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s main securities watchdog, had been expelled from the Party and removed from public office. The Commission said the action had been approved by the CCP Central Committee. Yi, a full minister-level official who had also served as an elected member of the Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee and as deputy director of the economic committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Party’s political advisory body, was handed over to prosecutors for indictment.
The anti-corruption commission’s official notice accused Yi of defying Party directives while feigning compliance, shirking responsibility, engaging in superstitious activities, and lying to investigators during a formal inquiry. He was also charged with using his position to benefit others in cadre promotions and receiving property in exchange; permitting and encouraging relatives to exploit his official influence for private gain; and personally steering financial benefits to family members through his authority. The notice further charged Yi with facilitating stock listing approvals, financing arrangements, and career advancement for associates in exchange for “enormous” sums of illicit cash, and with conducting sexual and monetary transactional corruption.
Yi Huiman’s career: from state bank lifer to head of China’s stock market regulator
Yi was born on Dec. 19, 1964, in Cangnan County, Zhejiang Province. He spent his entire career from 1985 to 2019 at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s largest state-owned lender, before being appointed Party secretary and chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in January 2019, a full minister-level post. In October 2022, he was elected to the Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee at the Party’s five-yearly congress, an internal selection process that ratified the leadership’s preferred candidates.
According to the Taipei Times, in February 2024, the CCP Central Committee and the State Council removed Yi from both his Party and government positions at the Commission. Observers widely attributed his removal to the persistent decline of Chinese stock markets during his tenure. That June, Yi was transferred to a nominal advisory post as a resident deputy director on the economic committee of the Party’s political advisory body, a position that had traditionally been reserved for deputy minister-level officials. Yi was a full minister-level cadre, making the reassignment a visible demotion.
On Sept. 6, 2025, Yi was placed under investigation for suspected serious violations of Party discipline and state law.
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Yi’s investigation began with an informant
On the same day the investigation into Yi was announced, Sept. 6, 2025, the mainland Chinese financial outlet Sina Finance reported that Yi had been fingered by a co-conspirator, writing that he “was not suddenly investigated — he was named.” According to the report, Zhu Congjiu, a former vice-governor of Zhejiang Province, had originally faced a case so severe that a death sentence was considered the baseline outcome: bribery exceeding 100 million yuan, roughly $14 million. In the end, Zhu received a life sentence. What he traded for it was a list of names that included Yi Huiman.
That list set off a cascade. One by one, the Zhejiang provincial branch heads of China’s six major state-owned banks came under investigation. Dozens of platform funds, private equity firms, and brokerage houses were drawn in. Executives at CICC (China International Capital Corporation), one of China’s most prominent state-backed investment institutions, vanished from public view in what sources described as a collective disappearance.
Zhu Congjiu was born in March 1965 in Feixi County, Anhui Province. He had served as general manager and Party secretary of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, a position that made him the youngest person ever to lead that institution. In January 2008, Zhu became an assistant chairman and Party committee member of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, also overseeing its issuance supervision department. From May 2012 to July 2022, he served as a vice-governor of Zhejiang Province, then moved to the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Party’s political advisory body in June 2022, and was elected vice-chairman of that body in January 2023. Zhu fell under investigation on May 4, 2023, and on Nov. 19, 2024, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of taking bribes totaling more than 105 million yuan.
Yi’s relatives used his official standing to run financial schemes for years before his arrest
On Sept. 6, 2025, the mainland Chinese financial outlet Caixin reported that rumors of Yi’s fall had been circulating since around Aug. 29 that year. A source with knowledge of the case told the outlet that authorities had recently detained Yi’s brother in Wenzhou, Zhejiang. The brother had previously managed a savings office under the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s Cangnan County branch and had since retired. In October 2024, he registered an individual business called “Cangnan Honest Clothing Shop.”
Sources within China’s financial industry told Caixin that Yi has one sister and three brothers, and that the brother most likely swept up in the investigation was known for trading on Yi’s name. “Supposedly one of his brothers is quite brazen,” one source said. “He was always dropping Yi Huiman’s name to work his way into circles. For a period, Yi was very careful about it. When his brother came to Beijing, Yi refused to see him.”
Well before Yi was formally investigated, industry insiders had observed that his relatives were conducting business by exploiting his official standing, and that multiple financial regulators and banking officials had already been investigated in connection with those activities.
Online commentators in China argue that Yi was scapegoated rather than punished as an exceptional case
On Sept. 9, 2025, a blogger on platform X using the account “Asia Finance” posted a detailed account of what he described as the collapse of Yi’s family corruption network. According to the post, when Party organization officials arrived at a meeting room in February 2024 to read out Yi’s dismissal order, security camera footage captured a striking scene: Yi stood up abruptly and adjusted his tie, then, visibly panicked, repeatedly patted the official badge on his chest. The post alleged that Yi’s son, Yi Chenyang, an executive managing director in CICC’s investment banking division, had participated in a 10-billion-yuan private equity project run through CICC that served as a laundering channel for the family: funds raised illegally inside China were moved offshore through a three-layer structure into the Cayman Islands, then cycled back into mainland Chinese stock markets through quota allocations reserved for qualified domestic institutional investors. “How much did the Yi father-son pair take?” the post asked. “A hundred billion is the floor.” The blogger placed Yi’s detention at around Aug. 29, 2025, and said several family members were taken away at the same time.
Online commentary on the case cut to what many observers see as the structural rot beneath individual prosecutions. One X user wrote: “He came from humble origins, went along with the crowd to skim money, couldn’t manage the princelings and second-generation elites, and lost his footing on the balance beam. Being dragged out as a sacrificial offering is the natural result. I’m not defending him; I just want to ask: there are so many second- and third-generation red families in finance. Why hasn’t a single one been hauled out and slaughtered? That’s why so many people inside China complain about class calcification.”