China sentences former senior official, regulator to death for corruption

Tong Daochi, a former senior official of China’s southern Hainan province and an ex-securities regulator, was sentenced to death for bribery and insider trading, with a two-year reprieve, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.

Tong, also former China Communist Party secretary in the city of Sanya in the province, received bribes worth 274 million yuan ($41.07 million) between 2004 and 2020, Xinhua said.

When Tong was vice head of the issuance department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in 2006 and 2007, he obtained 3.38 million yuan of illegal profit through insider trading, the article said.

The reprieve means the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment or to a fixed term at the end of the two years if he is not convicted of further crimes or has performed “meritorious service.”

Tong joined the CSRC in 2000 after stints at the World Bank and the RAND Corp, the US public policy think tank.

Tong, who graduated from the Peking University, holds a master’s degree in public administration from Canada’s Carleton University, and a Ph.D. in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has launched several anti-corruption campaigns that have brought down government officials, regulators, bankers and senior company executives.

Also on Thursday, China’s anti-graft watchdog said that Wang Zongcheng, former head of the CSRC accounting department, was being probed for suspected violations of laws and regulations.

Previously, Wang was head of CSRC’s bureau in eastern Zhejiang province between July 2016 and December 2018, according to the website of the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection (CCDI).