China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) announced the expulsion of four of its members on suspicion of violating the law and discipline, including scientist Yang Xiaoming, creator of the first vaccine against Covid-19 approved in the Asian country.
The ANP Standing Committee adopted the decision last Friday (26), which, in addition to Yang, also affects Han Shuwang, former president of the Chinese aerospace investment conglomerate; Xu Nuojin, former president of Zhingyuan Bank; and Gu Zhengju, former leader of the Communist Party in Nanchong, in the province of Sichuan (center), according to local media reports this Monday (29).
Yang, who is also under investigation by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption body, conducted the research that culminated in the approval of the Sinopharm vaccine – one of the most used in China and exported to more than a hundred countries, including Brazil.
The fall from grace of the well-known researcher highlights the alleged anti-corruption campaign of the Chinese authorities, which in recent times has extended to the health sector, which includes hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, with numerous arrests of health center directors in recent years. months, as the South China Morning Post recalled.
Former Sinopharm deputy director Zhou Bin has also been under investigation since January.
After coming to power in 2012, the current general secretary of the Communist Party and the country’s dictator, Xi Jinping, began an anti-corruption campaign in which several high-ranking officials were convicted for allegedly accepting bribes worth millions of dollars.
The Chinese Communist Party punished 610,000 officials in 2023, a record number within the campaign initiated by Xi, who consolidated his power at the head of the country during the Congress that the party held in 2022.
In addition to sectors such as health, Xi’s current campaign targets areas as diverse as finance, sports and tobacco, amid suspicions from several experts that the accusations are part of a strategy to bring down critics and rivals.
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