Pin Ho and Wenguang Huang are coauthors of A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China, which documents the rise and fall of regional Communist Party chief Bo Xilai.

In August 2012, Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai, a once-powerful former member of China’s ruling inner circle, was put on trial for the murder of a British businessman. The court gave her a suspended death sentence after only seven hours of closed-door deliberation. No witness was called, and defense lawyers were not allowed to conduct any cross-examinations. Prior to her trial, Gu had been investigated by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption agency at a secret location for four months without access to a lawyer.

Two weeks after Gu’s trial, Zhou Yongkang, who was then the iron-fisted official in charge of China’s judicial and law-enforcement functions, dismissed criticism by the international media and legal scholars that Gu’s investigation had lacked transparency and that the court had failed to honor due process. He met publicly with court officials who handled Gu’s case, praising them for serving the Communist Party well and for “holding a fair trial that could stand the test of history.”


Zhou Yongkang could probably never have imagined that barely two years later, he would be standing on the other side of the law and experiencing firsthand the “fair” system that he and other senior leaders have solidified in the name of “maintaining of stability and eliminating corruption.”

As of this week, Zhou, who used to be China’s third most powerful politician, is now officially under investigation by the Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission—the same body that brought down Gu and Bo Xilai. In a brief statement, the official media simply stated that Zhou has “seriously violated party disciplines.” There is no mention of why and where he is being investigated.

According to an official with the Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission in Beijing, the party has employed hundreds of investigators to interrogate Zhou and his former allies, and to research his case, at an undisclosed location. He is not allowed to hire a lawyer, and yet the confessions obtained during the secret process can be used in the party’s decision to strip him of his party membership and send him to jail, or even to the execution ground.

To many in China, news of Zhou’s investigation comes as a startling irony. The 71-year-old Zhou was a member of China’s Politburo Standing Committee – the country’s highest decision-making body. Before his retirement in November 2013, Zhou controlled what was known as China’s fourth power, which encompassed the nation’s police, the state agency for prosecution and criminal investigation, the courts, justice departments and national intelligence departments. He had a staff of 10 million people, with an officialannual budget of $116 billion in 2013 to maintain “social stability.”

Under his reign, China’s security apparatus greatly expanded, and the court became the party’s mere puppet. Police used extreme measures, such as kidnapping, torture and illegal confiscation of personal property to suppress pro-independence protests in Tibet and persecute Falun Gong practitioners, underground Christian church members, political dissidents, petitioners and human rights lawyers. Police would have activists “disappear” for months without notifying their relatives. Human rights organizations accused Zhou of turning China into a de facto police state.

Zhou’s victims are delighted that he will be accorded similar treatment. So far, the source says, Zhou has been accused of killing political opponents, including several businessmen and a prominent military figure—and even of plotting with Bo Xilai to assassinate and seize power from President Xi Jinping.

Overseas Chinese media outlets also reported that between 1999 and 2002, Zhou, a married man, allegedly had affairs with multiple women, including a TV journalist 28 years his junior. Zhou filed for divorce in 2008 to marry the journalist. Soon after, his first wife mysteriously died in a car crash. Two of his former aides are now suspected of orchestrating the accident.

Then there are the corruption stories. Zhou’s family invested heavily in the oil and construction business. According to a report in Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, Zhou’s eldest son pocketed more than 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) from public projects in the city of Chongqing. He also used his father’s influence in the legal arena to extort millions of dollars in protection fees. In one case, Zhou’s son bailed out a police officer who had killed a criminal suspect by pouring buckets of scorching hot oil over his head.

If these charges prove to be true, he could be prosecuted and spend the rest of his life in prison, like Gu Kailai and Bo Xilai.

As Zhou’s case unfolds, President Xi hopes to use it to illustrate his determination to eliminate graft and hunt down corrupt officials no matter how powerful they are. But he will have a hard time convincing the public that his anti-corruption campaign will truly make a difference. Is he really cracking down on corruption, or just eliminating a powerful rival?

In China, under the one-party system, no official is immune to corruption. We all understand that Zhou is no angel – he is ruthless and corrupt, but those who served or are serving on China’s top decision-making body are just as corrupt and despicable, if not more so. Zhou was caught because he allegedly plotted to seize power from Xi. His corruption charges were merely used to cover his political crimes. Consider former premier Wen Jiabao, whose relatives have profited tremendously during his leadership. According to the New York Times, his family has amassed a fortune of more than $2.7 billion. But so far, there is no indication that Xi would tackle that corruption case.

Besides, anti-graft campaigns are nothing new in China. Xi’s predecessors snagged similar big political “tigers” in the past. Former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao successfully brought down Chen Xitong, the former party secretary of Beijing in 1998; Chen Liangyu, the former party chief of Shanghai in 2008; and Bo Xilai, the former party chief of Chongqing in 2013. All three were jailed on corruption charges. The convictions failed to mitigate the problem.

For decades, there has been an unwritten rule within the Communist Party that members of the Politburo Standing Committee should always act as a cohesive unit, or at least maintain a facade of unity to prevent chaos and preserve the stability of the party. For the sake of the collective unity, senior leaders have been granted immunity from criminal investigations and prosecution. As the ancient Chinese saying points out, “Punishment does not extend to the emperor’s advisers and ministers.”

Zhou is the highest-ranking official to be placed under formal investigation for corruption since 1949. Xi’s bold move to break the unwritten rule could widen the party’s internal rifts and add political uncertainty. In the past year, when investigators targeted a dozen of Zhou’s protégés and his relatives, several current and former members of the Politburo Standing Committee reportedly opposed Xi’s move and urge him to limit the scope of his anti-graft campaign. They worried that their families could be next. As Zhou’s investigation deepens and expands, Xi’s opponents could ally and conspire against him.

Government graft occurs due to the lack of transparency in China’s ruling system. Ironically, China’s anticorruption organization works the same way: Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has used secret means to bring down hundreds of senior and mid-ranked leaders within the government and military—about 30 senior officials at the provincial and ministerial level or above have been put under investigation for corruption since December 2012, according to the Chinese state media. Survivors are now living in fear. While some officials have committed suicide during or before investigations, others have escaped abroad or sought early retirement. For the majority, they choose to stand idle—holding off on new initiatives to stay safe and wait for the storm to pass.

In October, at one of the Communist Party’s top annual gatherings, Xi will reportedly make “ruling the country by law” its main theme. But, in reality, the party has never intended to rule China by law because an independent judicial would threaten its monopolistic rule. China’s legal system has been used to serve the interest of those in power and punish political opponents and dissidents. As a consequence, no one feels safe, not even those who are in power now. In Xi Jinping’s China, those who are investigating Zhou today could just as well end up in jail tomorrow.