NYT reports this morning that the Hu/Zeng crime fighting dynamic duo have turned their sites on Beijing–and Standing Committee Member, Beijing party secretary, and Jiang Zemin ally Jia Qinglin could become the first member of that elite club to be purged for corruption since the CCP took power in 1949. “A widening Chinese anti-corruption probe has targeted Beijing’s party leaders, a sign that President Hu Jintao intends to continue removing officials he considers insufficiently loyal, people told about the leadership’s planning said. Some 300 Communist Party investigators have been examining property deals and procurement practices in the capital city since at least late September and have uncovered suspicious dealings that implicate top Chinese leaders, the people said…
If the investigation results in the removal of one or both of the men, it would make the ongoing housecleaning the most sweeping since the shake-up after the 1989 suppression of democracy protests.”
This past week, Jia Qinglin has been in the UK, meeting with British PM Tony Blair. Jia is scheduled to be in Europe until November 3 but there’s no word on whether the timing of the trip and the announcement were *ahem* coincidental.
Per the NYT, Standing Committee members have