China’s Communist Party has ordered media outlets to tone down reporting on the financial scandal that led to the dismissal of Shanghai Communist Party leader Chen Liangyu.
The scandal is expected to implicate other senior Communist Party officials, including possibly even members of the eight-member ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo, the collective dictatorship that controls the government and military.
The Central Propaganda Department instructed Mainland media to take a low profile in reporting the case. In a memo, the department prohibited media from discussing “the party line and party connection” in covering the case.
Only news of the scandal released by the official news agency Xinhua should be published.
"No unauthorized or sensational reports shall be allowed. All speculative and exaggerative reports on Chen should stop," noted the nine-point circular from the Central Propaganda Department.
It also urged major websites to strictly screen online discussions, particularly those involving speculation on inner-party power struggles. The major websites were told to prohibit speculation on relationships between current and past leaders at the central level, as well as on relations between the central and local governments.
The move against Chen is part of anti-corruption efforts by Beijing aimed at suppressing rampant financial corruption among senior party leaders.
As many as 2,000 investigators are currently involved in the ongoing probe. Media reports have identified others arrested as Wu Zhiming, director of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, who is said to be former President Jiang Zemin’s wife's nephew; Sheng Hongguang, head of the Shanghai United Front Work Department; and Sun Luyi, deputy secretary general of the Shanghai Municipal Communist Party Committee, who is known as Chen's "head clerk."
In addition, several top officials at state enterprises are said to be under investigation.
Several Shanghai city officials are believed to have fled the country, including top officials of a state-run company that is under the Shanghai Agricultural Commission.
The Hong Kong Economic Times reported that Chen's son, who had borrowed $126.4 million from the social security fund, left the country in early August to evade authorities.
