China sentences ex-official to death in $323 million corruption case

China has sentenced a former senior city official to death after finding him guilty of accepting more than 2.2 billion yuan (around $323 million) in bribes over three decades, in one of the country's biggest corruption cases in recent years.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post, Yang Youlin, 69, served in several government positions in Nanjing between 1993 and 2023. Along with bribery, he was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power and money laundering.

The case is part of President Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted senior officials across the government, military and financial sectors.

While the campaign has been presented as an effort to clean up the Communist Party, critics have also argued that it has been used to remove political rivals.

More from World

Court cites 'extremely serious' offences

The Changzhou Intermediate People's Court said Yang used his official positions to help companies and individuals secure engineering contracts, land transfers and financing approvals in exchange for money and valuable gifts.

The court described his crimes as being of an "extremely serious nature" and said they had caused "exceptionally heavy losses to the interests of the state and the people."

Although Yang cooperated with investigators, pleaded guilty and expressed remorse during the trial, the court ruled that the seriousness of his crimes outweighed these mitigating factors. It said his assistance to authorities was not enough to justify a lighter punishment.

Part of Xi's anti-corruption campaign

Since taking office, Xi has launched multiple rounds of anti-corruption investigations that have led to the punishment of thousands of officials at different levels of government.

Death sentences for economic crimes remain relatively uncommon in China, but they are imposed in some cases involving exceptionally large amounts of money.

In 2021, former state-owned financial executive Lai Xiaomin was executed after being convicted of accepting 1.8 billion yuan in bribes over a decade.

More recently, in 2024, former Inner Mongolia official Li Jianping was executed after being found guilty of embezzlement and accepting bribes worth more than 3 billion yuan.

In many other corruption cases, Chinese courts have instead handed down lengthy prison terms or suspended death sentences, which are often commuted to life imprisonment after a specified period if the convicted person shows good behaviour.

Yang's case, however, was deemed serious enough for the court to impose the death penalty, underscoring the tough stance China continues to take against high-level corruption.