The chairman of an influential Chinese insurance company has stepped down after domestic media reported that he had been detained as authorities pursue a sweeping campaign against alleged corruption in the financial industry.

Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of Anbang Insurance, was “unable to perform his duties for personal reasons”, the company said.

Caijing, a respected Chinese news magazine, reported that Wu Xiaohui had been taken away by police on Friday in Beijing and that government regulators had then met the company the following day. The report was quickly deleted, highlighting the sensitivity of the case.

Anbang, which is closely connected to the Chinese government, said the company was operating normally and that Wu had delegated power to other executives.

The company had been in controversial talks earlier this year to invest $400m (£313m) in a New York building owned by Jared Kushner’s company. The deal was scrapped after intense public scrutiny, amid criticism from lawmakers and government ethics experts who saw it as a potential attempt by China to curry favour with the White House.

Kushner, who is Donald Trump’s son-in-law and an adviser to the president, has been tasked with heading up the White House’s relations with China.



Wu’s detention comes amid a flurry of political activity among Chinese tycoons in the months leading up to a critical Communist party meeting later this year.

In January, Xiao Jianhua, a billionaire, was abducted by Chinese security agents from his apartment at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong and spirited across the border. In recent months, Guo Wengui, a businessman in self-imposed exile in New York, has accused top Communist party officials of corruption, threatening to release documents proving his allegations while publicly hoping to come to a deal with Chinese leaders.

Many saw Wu as more politically secure. He is married to the granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader in the 1980s credited with the country’s rapid transition to a capitalist system and economic fortune. Wu was recently barred from leaving China, according to previous reports.

Anbang is also rumoured to have a host of politically connected investors, but its ownership structure remains opaque. That lack of transparency led regulators in New York to demand details of Anbang’s funding and shareholding structure before approving the purchase of a US insurer. The deal eventually collapsed after the company refused to comply.

China’s anti-corruption watchdog has begun targeting the insurance sector, including the country’s regulator, and Anbang has been banned from offering new products since last month for “wreaking havoc on market order”.

The head of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission was detained in April for graft, in a sign that President Xi Jinping’s wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign has turned its focus to the financial industry. Critics of the campaign say it is politically motivated and has done little to attack the root cause of graft in China.

Anbang has about $300bn in assets and Wu led the company as it embarked on a worldwide buying spree, including purchasing the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, spending $6.5bn on another 16 luxury hotels and buying South Korean and Dutch insurance companies. Last year Anbang made a failed $14bn bid for the Starwood hotel chain.