Official investigated for violations of ‘discipline and law’

He Jiacheng, executive vice president of the Chinese Academy of Governance (CAG), is being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China announced on its official website Saturday.

The CAG is an important training center for mid- and high-level officials.

He, 58, became the sixth minister-level official who has fallen from power during the current anti-graft campaign which has also seen the downfall of Jiang Jiemin, former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and Li Dongsheng, former vice-minister of public security.

He made his last public appearance on September 27 at a seminar, The Beijing News reported.

An accomplished economist, He studied at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and won China's most prestigious economics award, the Sun Yefang Award for Economics and Science, in 1986. He was widely seen as one of China's most successful scholar-turned-officials in recent years.

He was appointed vice president of the CAG in 2009 and promoted to executive vice president in 2013.

"We felt very surprised and shocked when we heard this news," Xu Yaotong, a professor with the CAG, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"As a scholar-turned-official, He had a democratic attitude towards management. He respected us teachers and valued our academic research," said Xu.

Xu added that "He might have done something illegal before coming to the CAG. However, even though he has a sparkling resume, we still should have zero tolerance for graft and support the Party's decision."

He is not the first scholar-turned-official that has run afoul of the anti-corruption campaign.

Zhang Shuguang, former deputy chief engineer at the now-defunct Ministry of Railways, was removed from office in 2011 and convicted of corruption in 2013. Before coming under investigation, He was also a part-time professor in Zhejiang University, Beijing Jiaotong University and Southwest Jiaotong University.