Yang Yiwen and Li Xiangjiang.
On the afternoon of November 18, two reports of the investigation of officials reported on the official website of the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision aroused public concern. Half an hour after Yang Yiwen, secretary of the Changde Municipal CPC Committee, was announced to be subject to examination and investigation, his wife, Li Xiangjiang, deputy secretary of the party committee and deputy director of the Changsha Municipal Public Security Bureau, was also announced to be subject to examination and investigation. On the 19th, the website reported that Yang Wenli, former director of the human resources department of Changsha Radio and Television Station (Group), was suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, and Yang Wenli was Yang Yiwen's sister.
Yang Yiwen and Li Xiangjiang both studied journalism at Changsha University before entering their careers. In 1988, Yang Yiwen was transferred to the Political Department of the Changsha Municipal Public Security Bureau, and Li Xiangjiang also entered the "Public Security Weekly" managed and guided by the Political Department of the Changsha Municipal Public Security Bureau.
In March 2016, Yang Yiwen was transferred to Loudi City, successively serving as deputy secretary of the municipal party committee, acting mayor and mayor; his wife Li Xiangjiang has been in the public security system, successively serving as the principal of the secondary professional school for public security cadres, and the secretary and director of the party committee of the Changsha Public Security Police Officer Training Center. In April 2021, Yang Yiwen took office as secretary of the new Changde Municipal Party Committee, and fell seven months later, followed by his wife and sister.
It is not uncommon for husband and wife officials to fall from power; in the past, Wang Huaizhong, former vice governor of Anhui Province, and Li Jizhou, former vice minister of public security, both fell from power; later, Xiao Tian, former deputy director of the General Administration of Sports, and Du Shanxue, former member of the Standing Committee of the Shanxi Provincial CPC Committee, were "husband and wife." In recent years, cases of "family corruption" such as Yang Yiwen's have still occurred from time to time. "He who will teach the whole world will surely be his home and his body will be straightened out." These fallen husband and wife officials themselves are not righteous, ignore the family style and tutoring, and eventually bring disaster to themselves and their families.
Pull out the radish and bring out the mud
Since the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission has reported that nearly 60 percent of the cases of fallen officials violating discipline involve their families and relatives, and in the cases investigated and handled by discipline inspection and supervision organs in various localities, family-style corruption such as money-collecting couples and even family corruption has occurred frequently. Some husbands and wives are also party members and leading cadres, and instead of supervising each other to jointly build a clean and honest family style, they have "double-handedly corrupted" and used power as a tool for amassing wealth for their own families.
On November 24 last year, the Discipline Inspection Commission of Tongliang District of Chongqing Municipality issued a notice that Lin Huijiang, a former member of the party group and deputy director of the management committee of the Jinlong Industrial Park in Chongqing, was expelled from the party, and his wife Luo Tianqiong, former secretary of the party group and vice president of the Tongliang District Family Planning Association, was expelled from the party and dismissed from public office. Lin Huijiang and Luo Tianqiong fell on the same day, which caused a heated discussion in the local area.
"I agreed with Luo Tianqiong that I would receive all this unclean money, so that Luo Tianqiong's account would be clean and the relevant departments would not be able to find us." In 2009, Lin Huijiang and Luo Tianqiong accepted 200,000 yuan from friends, and since then, the two have conspired to embark on a road of corruption and no return. From 2008 to 2013, the husband and wife took advantage of Luo Tianqiong's position as deputy director and director of the former Tongliang County Land and Housing Management Bureau to jointly accept more than 2 million yuan in funds to seek benefits for others in terms of project contracting, fund allocation and loan, and approval of land and housing management procedures.
Husbands and wives are corrupt, and it is only a matter of time before the radish is pulled out and the mud is brought out. On April 23, 2018, Liang Zhijun, secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Southern District of Zhongshan City, fell from power, and three days later, his wife, Deng Jie, then former deputy secretary general of the Zhongshan Municipal Party Committee, fell from power. In 2017, during an investigation into a case of illegal land transfer, Liang Zhijun attracted the attention of the Zhongshan Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection. It was during the verification of Liang Zhijun's relevant issues that the Discipline Inspection Commission discovered problems such as abnormal assets and abnormal capital transactions under Deng Jie's name. Finally, it was found that Deng Jie had violated discipline and laws, and the property involved in the case was worth more than 20 million yuan.
Husband and wife officials are all in one place, most of them choose to act in a low-key manner, and if there is a criminal activity, they even try to hide the crime, such as the frightened bird is afraid of life. However, it is such a high-profile couple who weave a network of entangled interests in the local area, but they are not afraid to appear in public at the same time.
In 2019, Song Wenhua, former party secretary of the Tianjin Dongli District Education Bureau, and Bai Baozhong, former deputy director of the Dongli District Housing and Construction Committee, both fell. In the notices that Bai Baozhong and Song Wenhua were double-opened, they both mentioned "losing control of their families" and "not truthfully reporting to the organization that their sons were engaged in business and other major personal matters", and both were involved in "engineering corruption" at the same time.
The two appeared in a political column of Tianjin Television at the same time, talking about it, when netizens called it "the first family of Dongli". According to the case-handling personnel, the two people's report letters were "stacked up more than a meter high", Song Wenhua worked in the education system for decades, and the cadres she promoted were all over the region's various systems and fields.
Great trouble is coming
The fall of husband and wife at the same time is not called fate nor is it a coincidence, but a vivid interpretation of the profound meaning of the phrase "self-inflicted sins, not to live".
Zhong Weimin and Yan Cailan.
In October 2015, Zhong Weimin, former deputy secretary general of the Heyuan Municipal Government of Guangdong Province, and Yan Cailan, former deputy director of the Heyuan Municipal Planning and Construction Bureau, were sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment and Zhong Weimin to 10 years' imprisonment for accepting bribes. Zhong Weimin and Yan Cailan not only fell at the same time, but even the appointment was on the same day.
On July 4, 2012, the official website of Heyuan Municipal Government issued a notice of appointment, appointing Zhong Weimin as deputy secretary general of the municipal government (at the level of the department), and in the same appointment notice, Yan Cailan was appointed as the deputy director of the Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Planning and Construction Bureau (at the level of the department). On September 12, 2013, the couple was detained at the same time, and on September 30, 2013, they were dismissed from their posts at the same time. The two not only demanded bribes, Yan Cailan also used the convenience of her position to convey benefits to local housing enterprises, and thus accepted bribes of more than 2.02 million yuan and two pieces of land.
Zhong Weimin defended himself in court, once denying his participation in the bribery, and then said that the bribery had always been led by his wife, and that he was an accessory and should be given a light punishment. However, the Court held that the evidentiary witnesses showed that Zhong Weimin was actively involved in the joint crime and was not an accessory.
If one of the spouses really sits upright, it will not be able to clear up the relationship afterwards, and in the end, it is only the argument that one of them shirks his responsibility and vainly seeks a lighter punishment.
Shen Jianping, the wife of Ma Ping, former secretary of the Tongliang County CPC Committee in Chongqing Municipality, is a procurator, and after the two fell from power, some media reported that Ma Ping repeatedly accepted money and was instigated by his wife. It is said that Shen Jianping once encouraged her husband to take bribes: "Corrupt officials are rats, and we procurators are cats... With me here, are you afraid that you won't know yourself or the other? As a result, Ma Ping was sentenced to 13 years in prison after his wife "bolded" and Sentenced to 3 years in prison. Even if one side wants to fill the gap, this cannot be an excuse for the corruption of the other party, and the statement that one party is instigated and coerced by one side can really not make a scene for anyone.
Of course, there are also "husbands singing women with" and "suffering and sharing". When Ping Xiaofang, a trade union cadre of a securities company in Shenyang, the wife of Mu Suixin, former vice governor of Liaoning Province, was investigated, she pretended to laugh, dance, cry, and even "cut her wrists and committed suicide" in order to protect her husband. After clearly realizing that pretending to be crazy and selling stupid resistance is ineffective, Ping Xiaofang finally confessed the facts of her husband's crime.
Family style and system go hand in hand
Last year, Luo Yingguang, secretary of the party leading group and director of the Yunnan Provincial Civil Air Defense Office, and Qu Zhirong, member of the party leading group and deputy director of the Yunnan Provincial Radio and Television Bureau, voluntarily surrendered two days apart. In August 2014, Luo Yingguang became the secretary of the Xinyuxi Municipal Party Committee, ruling the area for six years, and in June 2020, he was appointed secretary and director of the party group of the Yunnan Provincial People's Air Defense Office until he was investigated. Previously, several of Luo Yingguang's old colleagues during his tenure as secretary of the Yuxi Municipal Party Committee have fallen. His wife, Qu Zhirong, has been working in the Yunnan propaganda system.
Before Luo Yingguang and Qu Zhirong, another husband and wife official in Yunnan were investigated: Geng Mei, former vice mayor of Baoshan City and former secretary of the Longyang District Party Committee, and Cai Sihong, former vice mayor of Yuxi City. According to local politicians, Cai Sihong and Geng Mei were once "star officials" of a couple in Yunnan politics. From "going hand in hand" to "falling off both horses", it is lamentable.
No matter where or what level of leading cadres, as long as one party is corrupt between husband and wife, the other party chooses to acquiesce, or actively participate in common corruption, or even muddy a place, resulting in the "familyization" of local or departmental power.
The collective corruption from "official husband and wife" to "official family" is often collectively woven into a network of interests and corruption, and it is easier to collect other officials into the network. This form of corruption is extremely destructive to the local or sectoral political ecology, and the impact is even worse.
The family style of leading cadres is not a trivial matter of individuals and a private affair of the family, but an important manifestation of their work style. General Secretary Xi Jinping once said, "If the family style is good, the family road will be prosperous and harmonious; if the family style is poor, it will inevitably harm the children and grandchildren and harm the society... Corrupt family style is often an important reason for leading cadres to seriously violate discipline and the law. As an official husband and wife, they should be more disciplined as each other's "mirrors", correct family style, and advocate diligence and honesty.