Liu Yingxia, who was listed as China's 46th richest woman with assets worth 4 billion yuan (or $650,000,000), was removed this week from a senior political organization, for having links to a former high ranking official who is facing graft allegations.
Liu was ousted as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which is "a debating chamber that is part of the Communist Party-controlled governmental structure and usually meets once a year," as reported by the South China Morning Post and Agence France Presse.
The official news agency in China gave no reason for Liu's expulsion.
In one year, China's President Xi Jinping has had 21 top officials arrested for corruption.
Described as 'the most fascinating member of Chinese politics, she is well known in China's business world. Liu fell from from grace because of her close ties to Jiang Jiemin, a former president of the China National Petroleum Corp. who was arrested for a serious violation [known as] 'discipline,' which is a euphemism used by the Communist Party's watchdog in cases of corruption," as reported by asianews.it.
Jiang Jieman, a former president of the China National Petroleum Corp, is perceived as a crony of former security czar Zhou Yongkang who has faced severe graft allegations.
In August 2013, the Chinese government opened up a corruption investigation into Zhou as part of a wider anti-graft campaign following the conviction of Bo Xilai. Bo was convicted last September and sentenced to a life sentence for bribery and a host of other charges.
Zhou is reportedly being held in confinement without visitation rights in a heavily guarded facility on a military base near Baotou, Inner Mongolia, as reported by Oriental Daily News.
"One after another, the people implicated in Zhou's case are being picked off. I think they're releasing information about this bit by bit to create the sense that Zhou's fate is sealed," said Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent lawyer in Beijing, as reported by The New York Times.
Meanwhile, Liu who is married to to the son of a high ranking military officer, had invested in a 110-billion-yuan oil pipeline project in 2012 with the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).
According to reports, Liu has been an active philanthropist who donated "over 12 million yuan to public welfare, including renting a military jet to transport medicine and other aid mterial to the earthquake-hit Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province. In 2012, the Harbin Xiangying Group invested in a 100-billion yuan oil pipeline-project with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and two other state-run organizations," as reported in South China Morning Post.
Graft by China's political officials is nothing new. Just last October, it was reported that the country convicted nearly 150,000 officials on corruption charges.
At the time, President Xi Jinping vowed to go after powerful "tigers" and lowly "flies."
According to the prosecutor General Cao Jianming, nearly 66,000 officials were investigated for taking bribes, while close to 23,250 people for giving them, as reported in Xinhua news agency.
According to the country's statistics, about 4,800 cases involved bribes of at least 1 million yuan ($164,000) or embezzlement, which equaled at least 10 million yuan.
The highest profile case, as mentioned earlier, was the conviction of Bo Xilai, who had been seen as a "rising star" in China politics.
Bo served as a member of the Central Politburo and secretary of the Communist Party's Chonqing branch before being jailed for life for corruption, abuse of power and bribery.
Bo's political life began to unravel after his wife Gu Kailai was found guilty of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood in a Chongqing hotel room in 2001, and she was given a suspended death sentence.
