Wind Sound by the Sea｜Behind Xu Jiayin, the Fall of the Minister of Justice

1On April 2, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission announced that Tang Yijun, Secretary of the Party Group and Chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was accepting disciplinary review and supervision investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission. Tang Yijun’s last public appearance was on March 22 this year when he participated in a collective study of the theoretical study center group of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee. The theme of this collective study was “Adhering to the strict tone without wavering, deepening the rectification of work style and the fight against corruption, and unswervingly carrying the comprehensive and strict governance of the party to the end”. Perhaps Tang Yijun himself did not expect that he had just watched a special warning education film with everyone, and then he himself became a “warning material” for future generations. Before serving as the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Tang Yijun succeeded Fu Zhenghua and served as the Minister of Justice. This makes the most embarrassing thing for him after his fall may be the candidates who have participated in the judicial examination (now changed to the legal professional examination) over the years.

Once upon a time, legal practitioners who participated in the “legal examination” were proud to have a certificate signed by the Minister of Justice, but who would have thought that the Ministry of Justice would have three consecutive ministers (Wu Aiying, Fu Zhenghua, Tang Yijun) who fell. However, starting this year, legal practitioners who participate in the “legal examination” will no longer be embarrassed. The Ministry of Justice announced that starting from February this year, the new “Electronic Certificate of Legal Professional Qualification of the People’s Republic of China” directly deleted the signature of the Minister of Justice, which means that there will no longer be a minister’s signature on the legal professional qualification certificate. The Ministry of Justice did not explain the specific reasons, and no candidates asked… For Tang Yijun’s fall, those who are familiar with the inside story do not think it is strange, because all this has long been foreshadowed.

2Tang Yijun had worked in Zhejiang Province for a long time, serving as a member of the Standing Committee of the Zhoushan Municipal Party Committee, Secretary-General, Secretary-General of the Zhejiang Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, Deputy Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, and Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee. As early as when he worked in Zhejiang, Tang Yijun’s official career was very surprising. First of all, his promotion was so fast that it was jaw-dropping. From the time he was transferred to the Provincial Party Committee Office in the early 1990s, he was promoted to a deputy-department-level secretary in less than a year. When he was promoted to a department-level secretary, he was just over thirty years old. You must know that in the organization, ordinary people may have to work a lifetime to retire at the “department-level”, even if the deputy-department to the department seems to be close at hand, it takes a long time to work. After the promotion, only four years later, Tang Yijun was sent to Zhoushan as the Secretary-General of the Municipal Party Committee, and then returned to the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission as the Secretary-General. Soon, he was sent to Ningbo again, serving as Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission. Since Ningbo is a sub-provincial city, this means that Tang Yijun has been promoted from the department level to the hall-level cadre ranks.

Subsequently, Tang Yijun served as Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, Chairman of the CPPCC, Acting Mayor of Ningbo, etc. Until 2016, he did not serve as mayor, but directly jumped from acting mayor to Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee. A year later, he was transferred to Liaoning Province as Deputy Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, serving as Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and Acting Governor. Including later being transferred to the Ministry of Justice to “put out the fire”, his official career has been smooth.

What is strange is that in January 2023, when Tang Yijun was in his third year as Minister of Justice, he was suddenly transferred to Jiangxi Province to serve as Chairman of the CPPCC… This transfer is very intriguing. In any case, the level of “Minister of Justice” is not enough to be sent to Jiangxi to serve as the “idle position” of Chairman of the CPPCC. Many people speculate that Tang Yijun’s transfer to Jiangxi this time must have a simple reason behind it. The signal is also very obvious. Tang Yijun is a representative of the 20th National Congress, but as the “head” of a State Council ministry, he failed to be elected as a new member of the Central Committee of the 20th National Congress. There were many discussions in the public about Tang Yijun’s “free fall”, but many people said that they didn’t even figure out where Tang Yijun was from.

3Public information shows that Tang Yijun, born in 1961, is from Ju County, Shandong Province, and many people regard him as a Shandong native. In fact, that is only his ancestral home. Tang Yijun’s father was a cadre who went south, and later worked in Zhejiang, and he grew up in Lishui, Zhejiang. Previously, many materials praised Tang Yijun as “a youth with knowledge, self-taught”. But in fact, “a youth with knowledge” is actually a euphemistic expression of insufficient academic qualifications. Many officials with this background either deliberately hide their experience or try to go to university to “gild”. Tang Yijun later entered the officialdom and quickly obtained a party school degree to fill the facade. After graduating from middle school, Tang Yijun successively worked as “educated youth” in Shixi Commune, Qingtian County, Lishui County, Fuling Commune, and Yongkang County, Liaohu Commune in Zhejiang Province. In 1980, Tang Yijun, who ended his educated youth career, was not assigned to university through recommendation or the college entrance examination, but was assigned to the Lishui Prefectural Party School of Zhejiang Province as a data clerk. Needless to say, he was taking advantage of his identity as the “descendant of the cadres who went south”. But at that time, the system had begun to pay attention to academic qualifications. Due to the lack of academic qualifications, Tang Yijun, who could not be transferred to a cadre, was always a worker, and he was very depressed. It was not until 1986 that Tang Yijun obtained a bachelor’s degree by studying at the Zhejiang Provincial Party School and was transferred to a cadre. Although his academic qualifications were somewhat reluctant, Tang Yijun’s writing was very good, and he was seconded to work in the Theoretical Department of the Propaganda Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee. After obtaining the party school degree, he was successfully transferred to the official position and became a cadre of the Theoretical Department of the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Party Committee. Although he was only a small section-level cadre in the organization, Tang Yining was very lucky to meet a “noble person”. In 1989, a certain leader parachuted into Zhejiang, which helped Tang Yijun’s development a lot. Since then, Tang Yijun’s official career has also been opened, first directly becoming a deputy-department-level cadre, and in less than a year, he became a department-level secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Office. At that time, he was only 32 years old. Since he was the “person around the leader” that everyone envied, Tang Yijun’s energy was also extraordinary. In 1993, his hometown Lishui wanted to run a “Chuzhou Evening News” (Lishui was formerly known as Chuzhou), and all the procedures were completed, but it was stopped halfway because the new evening newspapers were not approved nationwide at that time. Lishui, unwilling to give up, went through his fellow villager Tang Yijun and directly reported to the provincial leader in charge of propaganda for more than an hour, and the matter was discussed at the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee. The meeting finally decided that “Chuzhou Evening News” could be run, but it could not be launched under the name of the evening newspaper. Soon, the new newspaper, renamed “Chuzhou Economic Life News”, was successfully launched, and after a few years, it was finally renamed “Chuzhou Evening News”. Although it seems that Tang Yijun did not put in much effort in the whole thing, in such a sensitive background at that time, without his connection and recommendation, it is estimated that Lishui’s newspaper would be difficult to be published. In 1997, Tang Yijun was sent to Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province, as the Secretary-General of the Municipal Party Committee.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this is the organization’s intention to let Tang Yijun go to the grassroots to exercise, and he will be promoted in the future. Sure enough, during his training in Zhoushan, Tang Yijun was also sent to the United States to participate in management training, which shows that the leaders valued him. In 2002, Tang Yijun, who returned from “gilding”, did not return to the Provincial Party Committee Office, but went to the Zhejiang Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission as the Secretary-General. In 2005, Tang Yijun was transferred from the position of member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission and Secretary-General to Ningbo, serving as Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission.

4In fact, Tang Yijun’s ability to rise through the ranks in the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee is closely related to his high emotional intelligence. In addition to his extraordinary writing skills, the key is that he is very good at helping leaders at all levels to promote, and ordinary things can be eye-catching under his brilliant pen. During his tenure as Secretary-General, although he no longer had to write materials every day, as the “chief steward” around the leaders, he was even busier. In addition to serving the leaders’ travels and meetings, he also often used his power to help some leaders solve personal problems. Such an intimate “super secretary” made Tang Yijun’s official career always smooth. But in Tang Yijun’s heart, whether it was the “Secretary-General” of the Provincial Party Committee or the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, it sounded very glorious, but it was still a job of serving people, which was far less enjoyable and more able to achieve political achievements than serving as a real-power secretary below. In 2005, after his operation, he finally had the opportunity to parachute into Ningbo. Ningbo is an economically strong city under Zhejiang, and its political and economic status is not inferior to that of Hangzhou, the provincial capital. Tang Yijun spent a lot of effort to be an official here. Although Tang Yijun came to Ningbo as he wished, several partners were very strong and were not interested in him. Huang Xingguo, the then Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, was from Xiangshan, Zhejiang. He climbed step by step from Xiangshan County to the Secretary of the Taizhou Municipal Party Committee, the Secretary-General of the Zhejiang Provincial Government, and the Vice Governor. It was not easy for him to get to the position of Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee. There was also Zhou Jiangyong, the then Secretary of the Xiangshan County Party Committee, who later served as the Development and Construction Management Committee of the Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Area, Zhejiang Province, and was also a powerful figure.

The two of them were much more senior than Tang Yijun, and they were also very close in private. After Tang Yijun came to Ningbo, he quietly collected a large number of reports against the two of them and completely controlled them. At that time, the petroleum, chemical, and financial industries in Ningbo were originally Huang Xingguo and Zhou Jiangyong’s own people, but Tang Yijun was not polite and replaced all kinds of key positions with people he was familiar with, almost openly robbing money. For example, Zhou Jiangyong’s younger brother almost monopolized all the petrochemical industries in Ningbo, but after Tang Yijun came, the Zhou brothers not only obediently gave up multiple projects in the chemical field to the Tang family, but also took the initiative to provide them with cash resources. For Tang Yijun, since the other party had already softened, there was no need to “kill them all”. Therefore, during Tang Yijun’s time in Ningbo, he colluded with Huang Xingguo, Zhou Jiangyong, and others, making the officialdom of Ningbo a mess. After Huang Xingguo and Zhou Jiangyong fell, an article in “China Economic Weekly” pointed out that after the two left Ningbo, the “letters of complaint against their respective illegal acts were like snowflakes”… But what is strange is that Huang Xingguo and Zhou Jiangyong were not affected at all and still rose step by step. Where the letters of complaint went, I am afraid only Tang Yijun knows best. Tang Yijun was not much better than the two of them. During his time in Ningbo, his family desperately accumulated wealth, and rumors of his greed for money and lust were also rampant in Ningbo. What is strange is that Tang Yijun, who did not have a good reputation, was promoted again for serving as a “firefighter”. On March 16, 2016, the day the “Two Sessions” of the National People’s Congress closed, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Lu Ziyue, the then mayor of Ningbo, was suspected of serious violations of discipline and was accepting organizational investigation. Ningbo maintained a vacancy in the “top leader” for more than a month. In May 2016, Tang Yijun, the then Chairman of the Ningbo Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was transferred from the “second line to the first line”, and resumed his position as Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and served as Acting Mayor. Before being transferred to the Chairman of the Ningbo Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Tang Yijun was the Deputy Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee and Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee. In August of the same year, Tang Yijun, who had been acting mayor for a short time, was re-used – he served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, and continued to serve as acting mayor. Since then, Tang Yijun’s official career has taken a new turn. This year, he was already 55 years old.

In May 2017, Tang Yijun was re-appointed as Deputy Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and continued to serve as Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee. At this time, it was only a year away from his appointment as Acting Mayor of Ningbo. At that time, Tang Yijun left a good impression on the organization and was once evaluated as: “Good political quality, strong sense of the overall situation, resolutely implementing the decisions and deployments of the Central Committee, the Provincial Party Committee, and the Municipal Party Committee; familiar with the situation in Ningbo, after training in multiple positions, familiar with party affairs work, broad vision, clear thinking, and innovative awareness.” This is the evaluation given to him by the superior organization department when he took office as Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee. This also once again verified that Tang Yijun was very good at playing “double-faced”, and he was also very good at showing himself in front of the organization, and he was successfully elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee at the 19th National Congress. This means that Tang Yijun has been included in the central vision, and his official career has no longer been limited to Zhejiang Province. Sure enough, shortly after the closing of the 19th National Congress, in October 2017, Tang Yijun went north to Liaoning and became Deputy Secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee and Acting Governor, and Secretary of the Party Group of the Provincial Government. Only three months later, Tang Yijun officially took office as Governor of Liaoning Province. When he took office in Liaoning, Tang Yijun said that “the revitalization and development of Liaoning is at a critical period of climbing over mountains and hills, and the development opportunities it faces are unprecedented, and the risks and challenges it faces are also unprecedented.” On the other hand, he also painted a new blueprint for Liaoning: “Liaoning in five years will have higher quality economic development, a more clear political ecology, a more friendly ecological environment, and a higher quality of life for the people, showing a Liaoning that is restructuring the system, rebuilding the ecology, and reshaping the image”. At that time, Liaoning, which had slow economic development, was full of expectations for this official who had been transferred from the eastern coastal province. In 2018, the economy of Liaoning Province did indeed have a leap, with the province’s gross regional product increasing by 6.1% year-on-year, which was the first time in 17 consecutive quarters to return to above 6%. At this time, it was the booming period of the new energy vehicle industry, and Liaoning Province was also looking for “potential stocks” in the field of new energy vehicles under the call of Tang Yijun. Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, as one of the cradles of China’s automobile industry, had previously missed several “new car-making forces” and had always been a little annoyed. Therefore, when a new car-making “new rich” in the field of new energy vehicles threw an olive branch, Shenyang was very happy. This “new rich” was the Evergrande Group, which was in the limelight at the time, and Xu Jiayin was also warmly received by Shenyang with the title of “China’s richest man”.

On June 15, 2019, the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation agreement between the Shenyang Municipal People’s Government and Evergrande Group was held in Shenyang, preparing to cooperate to establish a national automobile industry center. The picture of Governor Tang Yijun and Xu Jiayin shaking hands and talking enthusiastically appeared on the headlines of major media in Liaoning and Shenyang that day. Interestingly, the headlines of “Liaoning Daily” and “Shenyang Daily” that day were “Governor Tang Yijun met with Xu Jiayin, Chairman of Evergrande Group and his delegation”. But the report in “Evergrande Daily” was “Chairman Xu met with Tang Yijun, Governor of Liaoning Province”. In modern Chinese, “meeting” generally refers to contacts of equal rank. With Xu Jiayin’s identity, it may be more appropriate for “Evergrande Daily” to use “pay a visit”. Tang Yijun did not mind whether Xu Jiayin was “meeting” or “paying a visit”. What he cared about was how Evergrande would successfully settle the three major production and research and development bases for new energy vehicles, batteries, and motors in Shenyang. Unfortunately, from the governor to Shenyang, what they wanted was how to get more money out of Xu Jiayin’s pocket, but the boss Xu’s mind was not on new energy vehicles, he was interested in Shengjing Bank.
6Shengjing Bank Co., Ltd. was formerly the Bank of Shenyang, and was renamed Shengjing Bank with the approval of the China Banking Regulatory Commission in February 2007. In 2014, Shengjing Bank was successfully listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and it is the earliest and largest headquarter bank established in the Northeast. Xu Jiayin had coveted Shengjing Bank for a long time, knowing that the bank had always had a good asset condition, and its main focus was to support commercial projects in the Northeast. In the early years, the reason why Evergrande was able to continuously grow was that Xu Jiayin borrowed money from local governments under the name of various projects. It’s just that Evergrande did not invest in building real estate projects after getting the money, but invested the money in other fields, and then continued to borrow from local banks in the form of project cooperation, constantly cycling, and the wealth also increased. After the sky-high agreement between Shenyang and Evergrande was signed, because Tang Yijun asked about it, Xu Jiayin successfully extracted a huge amount of funds from Shengjing Bank. Starting in 2019, Shengjing Bank issued 2.2 billion shares to Evergrande in a targeted manner, with a price of 6 yuan per share, with a total cost of 13.2 billion yuan. After that, Evergrande continued to provide blood for its real estate projects with the help of Shengjing Bank. You must know that in 2016, when Evergrande acquired Shengjing Bank, the personal housing loan was still 1.9%, but by 2021, this figure had become 9.9%, an increase of 415%. The 2021 Evergrande announcement shows that from 2020 to 2021, Shengjing Bank provided Evergrande with 32.595 billion yuan in loans. The annual report of Shengjing Bank shows that before Evergrande acquired the shares in 2015, the total assets were 701.629 billion yuan, and the net profit was 6.224 billion yuan, both of which showed positive growth year-on-year. But after Evergrande acquired the shares, the total assets and net profit of Shengjing Bank continued to shrink. By the end of 2021, the bank’s total assets were only 1006.126 billion yuan, and the net profit continued to drop sharply by 65.0%, only 431 million yuan. Compared with the end of 2015, the net profit fell sharply by 93.08%. Not only that, the bad debt ratio of Shengjing Bank also began to soar, especially the non-performing loan ratio of real estate, which increased from 0.29% in 2018 to 1.98% in 2021, an increase of 6.83 times in three years. From 2020 to 2022, the asset impairment of Shengjing Bank was 10.625 billion yuan, 9.5 billion yuan, and 9.172 billion yuan, respectively, directly turning from a bank of the trillion-level to a bank of the billion-level, and the market value was greatly reduced. It is obvious that Evergrande’s acquisition of Shengjing Bank is like a “parasite”, which has sucked its blood dry. In 2023, after Xu Jiayin fell, Shengjing Bank was exposed to have caused 183.7 billion yuan in bad debts due to Evergrande. A good bank was “eaten and wiped clean” by Xu Jiayin, and its reputation was long gone. The funds withdrawn from Shengjing Bank eventually turned into countless unfinished projects of Evergrande, becoming a “cash machine” for the extravagant life of the Xu Jiayin family. We also know the story later. Evergrande was forced to withdraw its equity due to the explosion, leaving a pile of bad debts on the balance sheet of Shengjing Bank. According to the domestic bank supervision standards, these bad debts cannot be written off at all, and Shengjing Bank is still a listed company, but the Liaoning government does not have money to fill it, so in order to “get out of the table”, Shengjing Bank began a series of “tricks”. Shengjing Bank first sold the 183.7 billion yuan in bad debts to Liaoning Asset Management Company (AMC) for 176 billion yuan, and then “Liaoning Zi” borrowed money from Shengjing Bank in the name of a special special bond with an interest rate of 2.2%, with an interest of 29.3 billion yuan, to repurchase this bad debt. In a nutshell, this is a clumsy trick to cover up the eyes and ears, the purpose of which is to delay the realization with special bills for a period of 15 years… Anyway, who knows what will happen 15 years later. Although there has been no report on what kind of interest relationship Tang Yijun had with Xu Jiayin around such a large amount of bad debts of Shengjing Bank, combined with Evergrande’s past methods of colluding with officials, “power and sex transactions” and “collusion between officials and businessmen” are certainly indispensable.

7What is intriguing is that Tang Yijun, who clearly has the responsibility of “lack of supervision” over Evergrande, was transferred to the Minister of Justice as a “firefighter” under the background of the serious bad debts of Shengjing Bank, and was busy clearing up the “poison” of Fu Zhenghua. In April 2020, Fu Zhenghua, the former Minister of Justice, was transferred to the Vice Chairman of the Social and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Immediately, Tang Yijun went to Beijing to serve as Minister of Justice. In August 2021, Yuan Shuhong, the former Secretary of the Party Group and Deputy Minister of Justice, was no longer the Secretary of the Party Group, and Tang Yijun’s position was immediately adjusted to Secretary of the Party Group and Minister of Justice. The changes in the positions of Tang Yijun and Yuan Shuhong mean that the Ministry of Justice has ended the “dual-leader system” implemented since the institutional reform in March 2018, and Tang Yijun, the second minister, “took on one shoulder”. On October 2, 2021, Fu Zhenghua was investigated. On April 1, 2022, Tang Yijun presided over the (enlarged) meeting of the Party Group of the Ministry of Justice and, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, expressed “firm support” for the decision of the Central Committee to remove Fu Zhenghua from the party and remove him from public office. At that time, Tang Yijun was still regarded as a rising “political star” and seemed to have the opportunity to continue to move up. But no one expected that at the 20th National Congress at the end of 2022, 61-year-old Tang Yijun failed to be elected as a member of the 20th Central Committee, which began to cause speculation from all parties. In January 2023, Tang Yijun was suddenly transferred to Secretary of the Party Group and Chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. From the Ningbo CPPCC to the Jiangxi CPPCC, after ten years of ups and downs, Tang Yijun returned to his old profession. From the “head” of a central ministry to the “idle position” of a local CPPCC, this is both a signal issued by the relevant departments and the final end of Tang Yijun’s official career.

In fact, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Zhejiang has had Lu Ziyue, Huang Xingguo, and other former officials who have served as secretaries or mayors of the municipal party committee who have fallen, and Tang Yijun, who is closely related to them, is naturally impossible to be alone. What should come will come sooner or later. On April 2, 2024, Tang Yijun officially fell, and the rumors finally came true. The ancients often said that when things reach their peak, they will decline, and they will fall heavily from a high place. No matter what means they use to climb to a high place, as long as their virtue does not match their position, they will fall sooner or later. The ups and downs of Tang Yijun’s official career may just illustrate this point.