Former Senior Chinese Graft Inspector Xu Chuanzhi Sentenced to 12 Years for Bribery

Xu Chuanzhi, a former senior official in the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption apparatus, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on bribery charges.

The Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court in Zhejiang Province sentenced Xu on Oct. 8 for bribery and using the influence of his former positions to obtain illicit payments, according to Caixin. The court also fined him 2.5 million yuan (about $350,000) and ordered his illicit gains and related proceeds confiscated. 

Xu spent decades in the CCP’s disciplinary system and received several senior appointments while Wang Qishan headed the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Party’s top anti-corruption agency. 

Court finds more than 36 million yuan in illicit payments

According to a CCTV report carried by Sichuan Online, the court found that between 2001 and 2023, Xu used positions at the CCDI, in Ningxia, and with the Central Inspection Teams to help organizations and individuals with construction contracts, case handling and personnel appointments. He directly or indirectly received more than 10.72 million yuan ($1.5 million) in illicit payments. 

After retiring, Xu continued using the influence associated with his former positions. The same court findings said he enlisted other government officials to help organizations and individuals obtain construction contracts and received more than 25.87 million yuan ($3.6 million) in return. 

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The court sentenced Xu to 10 years and six months for bribery and five years for accepting bribes through influence peddling, imposing a combined sentence of 12 years. It said Xu confessed to offenses investigators had not previously uncovered, admitted guilt and returned illicit proceeds, factors considered in sentencing. 

Xu was placed under investigation in October 2025 and expelled from the CCP in January 2026. Party authorities accused him of interfering in disciplinary, judicial and economic matters, accepting gifts and money, helping others secure promotions and using his position for personal benefit. 

Xu advanced during Wang Qishan’s tenure

Xu, 69, is from Zhucheng in Shandong Province and spent more than three decades working in the CCP’s disciplinary system. His résumé included positions at the CCDI, the central government’s liaison office in Macao and several offices overseeing Party conduct and discipline. 

Xu became director of the CCDI’s Office of Party Conduct and Political Conduct Supervision in May 2013. He was appointed head of the CCDI inspection team stationed at the State Ethnic Affairs Commission in 2015 and became secretary of the Ningxia regional discipline inspection commission in 2016.

Those promotions came while Wang Qishan headed the CCDI from 2012 to 2017, when he played a central role in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign. 

Several other senior officials who worked in the disciplinary and financial systems during Wang’s tenure have since come under investigation. In June, former Central Inspection Office director Li Xiaohong was placed under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, according to China’s anti-corruption authorities, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

Former financial regulator Zhou Liang was placed under investigation in March on similar grounds. Reuters reported that Zhou had previously headed the CCDI department responsible for personnel appointments before becoming a deputy head of China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration.