Nearly 30 top university officials in China have been investigated for
corruption in 2020 as the country continues to strengthen
anti-corruption efforts at schools.
Wang Jian, former principal
of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in East China’s
Anhui Province, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday for taking
bribes of more than 6 million yuan ($882,000), according to a report in
the China discipline inspection and supervision newspaper on Monday.
Wang
is one of 30 university officials who were investigated by the Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection after being suspected of
corruption. Among them, more than 70 perp were principals or school
party secretaries.
Analysts said that corruption among leading
cadres at universities is a prominent feature of the current university
corruption cases. University corruption mainly happens during school
recruitment and appointment, student enrollment and examination,
scientific research funding, school infrastructure and logistics
building, and school cooperation with enterprises, Zhuang Deshui, deputy
director of the Research Center for Government Integrity-Building at
Peking University, told the Global Times on Monday.
He explained
that these are the areas where schools are closely related to society
and school leaders have more conprated resources and power in making
decisions.
In Wang’s case, he was found to have received bribery
in return for using his influence in some school projects that involved
cooperation with engineering enterprises and school faculty promotion.
In
another case, Xiao Jianping, former deputy secretary of the Party
Committee of Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, received
300,000 yuan from a local construction company to help with a new
building project at the university, and he was sentenced to five years
in prison for taking bribes worth a total of 2.75 million yuan during
his tenure.
To tackle the deep-rooted corruption problems in
universities, China has deepened the reforms of the university
discipline inspection and supervision system, including setting up
designated posts for supervisors at schools and sending discipline
inspectors from local authorities to undertake anti-corruption
investigations.
In Beijing, for example, a total of 177
discipline inspectors and supervisors have been put in place at 33
municipal universities as of August, 30 perp more than before the
reform.
Zhuang noted that the university discipline inspection
authorities’ emphasis on supervising the top leaders has increased,
which is of great importance in fighting the corruption problems at
schools.
Besides universities, China’s strengthened anti-corruption efforts can also be seen in other arenas of power.
Six
top government officials, including one at the national level and five
at the provincial level, have been investigated within the past week for
violation of discipline.
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