A former high-ranking official with China’s securities regulator was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Tuesday over bribery charges, as Beijing continues its sweeping anti-corruption campaign.
Wang Huimin, who served as a member of the Communist Party committee of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from 2014 to 2019, was found to have taken more than 436 million yuan (US$65 million) in bribes.
“The amount involved was especially large and caused especially heavy losses to the interests of the state and the people, warranting the death penalty,” the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court said in its verdict.
Wang was appointed to oversee discipline at the CSRC by China’s top anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, but later became the target of an investigation himself.
The court decided to give the 67-year-old former official a two-year reprieve on the death sentence, as he had shown a cooperative attitude after being taken into custody and “voluntarily disclosed bribery that investigators had not yet uncovered”, according to the verdict.
Wang’s death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment after the expiry of the two-year reprieve, but he would need to serve life in custody without commutation or parole, the court said.
The verdict follows a recent plunge in China’s stock market after days of large sell-offs, and as the ruling Communist Party convenes the fifth plenum of its Central Committee – a high-level meeting where discipline is expected to feature high on the agenda.
Several top CSRC officials have already been investigated. Yi Huiman, who led the CSRC from 2019 to 2024, was prosecuted last month for taking bribes, while former vice-chairman Fang Xinghai was placed under investigation in July over suspected “serious legal and disciplinary violations”.
The court found that Wang’s bribe-taking spanned his career from 1998 to 2025, through posts at China Construction Bank, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and the CSRC.
The former official will also forfeit his political rights for life and have all his personal property confiscated, according to the court.
China’s anti-corruption drive has swept up a slew of senior party figures in recent years. Of the present 205 full Central Committee members, 35 have either been placed under investigation or stripped of their legislative seats in China’s top legislature, according to calculations by the South China Morning Post.
The Communist Party convened an early monthly Politburo meeting last Friday to review a comprehensive report on the seventh round of inspections by the 20th Central Committee, doubling down on its anti-corruption campaign ahead of the fifth plenum, which kicked off on Monday. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
