On the evening of January 18, the fourth episode of the anti-corruption TV special "Zero Tolerance", "Systematic Governance", was broadcast on the CCTV comprehensive channel, which pointed out that the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is the province and region with the largest coal production in the country, and the coal industry has "grown barbarically" while "marching forward with great enthusiasm" and has gradually become a hotbed of corruption Former Deputy Secretary of the Party Group and General Manager of China Huadian Group Co., Ltd.
Upstream News (e-mail: [email protected]) reporter noted that in the 20 years of inner Mongolia's investigation of the coal mining field, as of November 6, 2021, Inner Mongolia has filed a total of 736 coal-related cases involving 1,023 people, including 69 departmental and bureau-level cadres, 243 county and department-level cadres, 820 party discipline and government affairs sanctions, and recovered 52.388 billion yuan in economic losses for the country.
▲The "three tigers" of the coal-related case in Inner Mongolia: Bai Xiangqun, Yun Guangzhong, and Yun Citizen. Image source/CCTV screenshot
Inner Mongolia coal mine field back 20 years
Inner Mongolia is the largest coal production area in the country, with rich coal resources, 11 of the 12 league cities have coal mines, the total estimated total estimated resources of inner Mongolia coal exploration in the whole region are 953.897 billion tons, of which the identified resource reserves are 473.069 billion tons, and the predicted resources are 480.828 billion tons. The amount of coal resources in the whole region is 459.041 billion tons, accounting for 26.87% of the country, ranking first in the country.
For some time, while the coal industry has developed rapidly, problems such as illegal acquisition, resale, and allocation of coal resources in the field of coal resources have also been constantly breeding and spreading, seriously polluting the local political ecology, and coal-related corruption has become the biggest "cancer" in the political ecology of the autonomous region.
"Systematic Governance" pointed out that since 2018, with the approval of the Party Central Committee, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission have successively filed a case review and investigation of five central management cadres in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and these corruption problems are related to coal. Through these cases, some deep-seated problems in the coal field in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have also been exposed.
The reporter noted that the special rectification of violations of laws and regulations in the field of coal resources in Inner Mongolia began on February 28, 2020, in response to the violations of laws and regulations in the field of coal resources exposed by corruption cases such as Yun Guangzhong, Bai Xiangqun, Xing Yun, and Yun Citizen, in accordance with the discipline inspection and supervision recommendations of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission, the party committee and government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region held a mobilization and deployment meeting for the special rectification of violations of laws and regulations in the field of coal resources in the autonomous region. In the evening, the Supervision Commission of the Autonomous Region Discipline Inspection Commission issued a public announcement on the centralized acceptance of clues on suspected violations of discipline or violations of official duties and crimes committed in the field of coal resources since 2000, and a storm of anti-corruption in the field of coal resources that has been investigated for 20 years has begun.
Reverse inspection refers to the combination of investigation, verification and special investigation in 2020 to conduct a full-factor inventory of all aspects of the planning and approval of all coal mines in the region since 2000, such as planning and approval, and to ensure that the problems in the field of coal resources are cleared to the bottom.
According to the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, on the basis of comprehensive investigation of the problems, Inner Mongolia has made great efforts to rectify all coal-related projects in the region since 2000, as well as all public employees serving and retiring in party and government organs, public institutions, and state-owned enterprises at all levels, and has focused on rectifying the problems of violations of laws and regulations by personnel working in important posts and related to the management of coal resources; it will seriously investigate and deal with the problems of enterprise bosses involved in the huge amount of money involved, strong reactions from cadres and the masses, and concentrated reactions to problems, and a particularly bad nature. Leading cadres, their spouses, children, and relatives investigated and dealt with problems such as the intertwining of economic and political interests and the illegal appropriation of state resources.
According to China News Weekly, in the 1990s, the country's coal supply mainly came from Shanxi. Due to the lax supervision link, Shanxi has had great problems with criminal and evil forces and official corruption. After 2000, Inner Mongolia's coal industry began to expand on a large scale, and the problem of corruption became acute.
▲ It was found that as many as 20 of the 37 bosses who paid bribes to Bai Xiangqun were involved in coal. Image source/CCTV screenshot
Cadres who had been retired for 18 years were investigated
After the special rectification work was launched, several officials fell in response.
On April 18, 2020, the website of the Inner Mongolia Discipline Inspection Commission supervision commission released the news: Hao Shengfa, the current party secretary and general manager of Inner Mongolia Coal Geological Exploration (Group) Co., Ltd., and Mo Ruoping, former party secretary and general manager, were suspected of serious violations of discipline and law. On April 24, He Jiangchao, secretary of the party committee and chairman of the board of directors of Inner Mongolia Huolinhe Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd., was also investigated on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law. In the following three months, more than 40 officials at and above the department level were involved in coal, many of whom were retired. Among them, Zhao Deying was nearly 80 years old when he was examined and has been retired for 18 years.
In the past 20 years, Inner Mongolia has always maintained a high-pressure posture, regardless of the level of position, the size of the contribution, retirement or not, the "show of the head" of coal-related corruption, full coverage, no forbidden areas, zero tolerance.
In the retrospective investigation, some questions wore "invisibility cloaks" and dug out the cocoon. Du Xuejun, former secretary of the Wulanchabu Municipal CPC Committee, has participated in the special rectification work meeting many times, but he can set one set on stage and one set off stage, and his loyalty does not leave his mouth, leaving a hand behind his back.
After investigation, in 2004, when Du Xuejun was the secretary of the Chenbal Tiger Banner Committee, he accepted a small request to help his company allocate coal resources, and accepted cash and real estate equivalent to more than 10 million yuan from the young couple. For many years, Du Xuejun was suspected of accepting bribes of tens of millions of yuan, and interrupted his career prospects in the paper drunken gold fans.
In the special rectification, Inner Mongolia resolutely removed the soil for stubborn work style diseases and corruption, adhered to the combination of "immediate reform" and "long-term standing", plugged regulatory loopholes, expanded and extended the governance chain, and comprehensively and deeply repaired the political ecology by improving a series of institutional mechanisms.
In 2020, Inner Mongolia issued the Provisions on Regulating the Participation of Spouses, Children and Spouses of Leading Cadres in the Exploitation of Mineral Resources (for Trial Implementation), which takes the spouses, children and spouses of leading cadres at or above the deputy section level (including the deputy section level) and general public employees involved in relevant departments involved in mineral resources development as the objects of regulation, and clarifies the specific circumstances and behaviors prohibited from participating in the development of mineral resources, which is stricter than the relevant regulations of other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
▲Yun Guangzhong and its sub-Yunlei. Image source/CCTV screenshot
Inner Mongolia's "Three Tigers" in the field of coal
Bai Xiangqun, a former secretary of the Wuhai Municipal Party Committee and a member of the inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government party group and vice chairman, was examined and investigated in April 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2019. It was found that as many as 20 of the 37 bosses who paid bribes to Bai Xiangqun were involved in coal.
Yun Guangzhong, who served as mayor and secretary of the Ordos Municipal Party Committee, member of the Standing Committee of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee, and secretary of the Hohhot Municipal Party Committee, was examined and investigated in June 2019 and sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2020. Of the nearly 100 million yuan in property he received from bribes, he received more than 37 million yuan from a coal-related enterprise.
Yun Citizen, former deputy secretary of the party group and general manager of China Huadian Group Co., Ltd., former vice chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was examined and investigated in October 2019; in 2021, when the court publicly tried in the first instance, the vast majority of the bribes accepted by the court were related to Inner Mongolia.
Bai Xiangqun, Yunguangzhong, and Yun citizen have all served as "number one" in the coal-rich league cities, and one of the most important powers is the right to allocate resources. For coal business owners, whether it is to buy coal mines, replace coal fields, or promote coal conversion projects, government approval is required, which makes business owners have the need to "hunt" and also makes government officials have the conditions for rent-seeking.
Hengtai Coal Co., Ltd. is a private enterprise in Ordos City, and in 2010 the company applied to Ordos City for a well field with larger reserves and better coal quality. In order to obtain the support of Yun Guangzhong, the mayor of Ordos at the time, the company's owner Hao Shenhai Tuo became acquainted with Yun Guangzhong's son and wife, and when he came to the door, he dragged 2 million yuan in cash with a suitcase at a time. Since then, he has sent money and gifts to Yun Guangzhong's wife and son many times, totaling nearly 3 million yuan. Correspondingly, Hengtai Company successfully replaced it with a high-quality well field.
Corruption in the coal sector has also spread to other areas such as transportation, land, and real estate, and some coal bosses have become rich and then participated in road construction, land speculation, and house speculation, and power and money transactions have also been brought into it. Yun Kaichen, the son of Yun Citizen, was involved in real estate and road engineering construction in Inner Mongolia, and Yun Citizen greeted local officials on the one hand to help his son get land, and on the other hand, instructed Huadian Group's coal company to buy housing in the son company, so that his son could quickly accumulate huge wealth.
▲ Cloud Citizen and its son Yun Kaichen. Image source/CCTV screenshot
Relatives and children are involved in the coal field
The involvement of relatives and children of many leading cadres in Inner Mongolia in the coal field is one of the prominent phenomena in coal-related corruption cases. Yun Guangzhong's son Yunlei and Yun Kaichen, the son of Yun Citizen, once colluded to do coal "business", which was essentially a huge bribe from his father in exchange for power.
Yun Kaichen, the son of Yun Citizen, said in the program: "In order to please my father or convey benefits, through the form of coal, let us buy at a low price and sell at a high price." Yun Guangzhong's son Yunlei said: "In fact, they are such a large coal enterprise, first of all, they are very familiar with my father, including Kaichen's father, they are very familiar. Without this resource, you can't connect, why do people give you wholesale prices? ”
"Systematic Governance" pointed out that a private coal enterprise in Inner Mongolia "wholesale" coal to Yunlei and Yun Kaichen at a low price, and then sold by them at a high price, the buyer is actually the company's good contact, the whole process is handled by one hand. The so-called company opened by Yunlei and Yunkaichen actually has no personnel, no equipment, no funds, and no actual business activities, and only needs to sign a contract and go through a formality to get the so-called coal price difference and collect money effortlessly.
Yun Kaichen, the son of Yun Citizen, said: "In fact, I have not done business, I will not at all, many officials in Ordos are my father's old subordinates, so it is very convenient, we carry out land development or something, we give us the green light, do a lot of illegal things." ”
Cloud citizens also directly use the authority of the leaders of central enterprises to profit the family. For example, in the coal transportation highway project in Wulanchabu City, Yun Kaichen nominally cooperated with another company to build, but in fact, only through the power of his father, he obtained a loan of 300 million yuan from the trust company under Huadian Group, and he got half of the profits of the project.
▲ Yun Guangzhong's son Yunlei and Yun Kaichen, the son of Yun Citizen, both took huge bribes from their father in exchange for power. Image source/CCTV screenshot
More than 500 public officials of the former Coal Bureau of Ordos City invested in the coal mine and paid dividends
According to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Discipline Inspection Commission, as of November 6, 2021, Inner Mongolia has filed 736 coal-related cases involving 1,023 people, including 69 cadres at the department and bureau level, 243 cadres at the county and department level, 820 people who were given party discipline and government affairs sanctions, 966 people who were organized and handled, 129 people who were transferred to judicial organs, 1,656 people who were held accountable, and 52.388 billion yuan of economic losses were recovered for the country.
An important reason why areas rich in coal resources have long been the hardest hit areas of corruption is that the boundaries between the government and the market are unclear and their responsibilities are unclear, resulting in problems such as the use of power for profit, collusion between officials and businessmen, and the transmission of interests, which worsens the market environment and causes chaos in the order of property rights transactions, market operations, and government governance.
Upstream reporters noted that of the 93 mining rights allocated by Ordos City since 2004, 23 of them are not compliant, and a large number of coal resources have been resold or occupied by enterprises. When Zhang Ping was the flag chief and secretary of the Flag Committee of Wushen Banner in Ordos City, he transferred the prospecting rights at a low price, resulting in huge losses of state-owned assets. More than 500 public officials of the former Coal Bureau of Ordos City took shares in the coal mine and paid dividends at high interest rates.
"Systematic Governance" pointed out that a number of cases reflect that coal-related corruption in Inner Mongolia is not just a case, but has caused serious systemic damage to the coal industry, and even the entire economic, social and political ecology.
Upstream journalist Li Hongpeng