China's anti-graft investigators detain Sinopec president

The president and vice-chairman of Sinopec, the Chinese petrochemical giant, has been detained by Communist party investigators on suspicion of "serious violations of discipline and the law", a phrase that is usually used to indicate allegations of corruption.

Wang Tianpu, the second-highest ranked official in the state-owned Sinopec Group, has been president of the sprawling company since 2011.

The investigation into Mr Wang, 51, was announced in a brief statement on Monday night on the website of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist party's all-powerful, extralegal internal anti-corruption organ. The commission has the power to hold and interrogate party members indefinitely.

Mr Wang's detention comes amid a sweeping graft crackdown launched by President Xi Jinping in late 2012, which is shaking the top echelons of the country's state-owned enterprises and the pervasive patronage networks between politicians and the business elite.

Mr Xi's probe has also had a sharp focus on the energy sector.

This month, Jiang Jiemin, the former head of China National Petrochemical Corp, went on trial following his detention in August 2013, accused of taking bribes and abusing power.

Scores, if not hundreds, of officials and former officials at CNPC and its listed subsidiary PetroChina have been detained on suspicion of corruption in the past two years.

Many of those purged were close to Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China's internal security forces and secret police who rose from the oil industry through the party ranks.

Mr Zhou was formally detained last year and is expected to go on trial in the coming months on charges of corruption, abuse of power and intentionally revealing state secrets.

As a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee that effectively runs China, he will be the most senior party official to go on trial for corruption since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.

While the anti-graft campaign initially focused on Mr Zhou's former power base at CNPC, it appears to have turned its attention to Sinopec at the end of last year.

In December, the first Sinopec scalp was claimed when Xue Wandong, vice-chairman and general manager of Sinopec Oilfield Services Corp, was detained by anti-corruption investigators.

Some analysts have suggested the party's targeting of alleged corruption at sprawling state sector companies is part of a broader push to reduce the power of state monopolies such as PetroChina and Sinopec, which wield enormous influence over everything from domestic environmental policy to China's relations with resource rich countries in Africa and Latin America.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation