Shanghai to feel full force of Xi's anti-corruption onslaught

The most extensive anti-corruption campaign in modern Chinese history is about to be unleashed on Shanghai, the country's commercial capital and the stronghold of Jiang Zemin, the former president.

Until now, China's most populous city has been left largely unscathed in a campaign that has been the centrepiece policy of President Xi Jinping's 20-month-old administration and has placed hundreds of thousands of officials under investigation.

A large task force from the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, an extralegal body tasked with investigating allegations of crimes or wrongdoing committed by party members, has arrived in Shanghai and will remain until the end of September.

The news comes one day after the party formally launched a CCDI investigation into Zhou Yongkang, former head of the secret police and the most senior figure to be accused of corruption in the history of the People's Republic of China.

Many political analysts believe the investigation into Mr Zhou, who has been in detention since the end of last year, will be a high water mark in Mr Xi's anti-corruption campaign. They argue that further escalation that potentially targets even more senior retired party officials would be dangerously destabilising for the authoritarian state.

But by turning the anti-corruption campaign on Shanghai, Mr Xi is directly threatening the legacy of Mr Jiang, 87, who retains enormous influence in the Party despite not having held an official title since he retired from the presidency in 2003.

Of the seven members of the Politburo's Standing Committee, the body that in effect rules China, four or five of them are considered close to Mr Jiang, who appeared in public in Shanghai in late May with visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an unusual breach of protocol.

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Political insiders say Mr Xi is incensed by Mr Jiang's pervasive lingering influence in both the party and the military.

Anti-corruption investigations have already targeted several people with close ties to the former president, including Xu Caihou, a former Military Commission vice-chairman and close ally of Mr Jiang. Mr Xu is almost certain to go on trial, making him the most senior military officer to face public charges in China in at least three decades.

The most recent example is Wang Zongnan, an acolyte of Mr Jiang and former chairman of Bright Food Co, which owns Weetabix breakfast cereal in the UK.

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A corruption investigation was opened on Monday into Mr Wang, 59, who is suspected of accepting bribes and embezzling public funds, according to state media reports.

Although the allegations revealed so far relate to Mr Wang's role as head of two other state-owned retail companies and not his leadership of Bright Food, the investigation is being interpreted as a clear warning to Mr Jiang. The former president worked at Bright Food's predecessor company during the Korean war in the early 1950s and has maintained a close personal connection with it ever since.

On its website, Bright Food boasts that Mr Jiang is the "founder" of the company's brand.

One Shanghai-based party member with knowledge of the matter said the head of the CCDI task force in the city was a Beijing native and his team was sent directly from the capital, an indication of the seriousness of their mission.

Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby

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