A top Chinese economic planning official has come under scrutiny as the latest target of Beijing’s high-level crackdown on corruption.
Liu Tienan, deputy head of the Cabinet’s National Development and Reform Commission, is being investigated for “suspected serious disciplinary violations,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on its website on Sunday.
This comes after Luo Changping, a prominent journalist and deputy editor of the Caijing magazine, accused Liu of having shady ties with a businessman and being involved in large, problematic bank loans. He was also alleged to have fabricated his academic qualifications, reports the Associated Press.
Liu wields significant power in his position as deputy chief of the planning agency in charge of steering the world’s second-largest economy.
The National Energy Administration, where Liu had been director until March, dismissed Luo’s allegations as “pure slander”.
The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily criticized the energy agency’s defense of Luo while new party chief Xi Jinping vowed to root out widespread graft that has plagued the country and undermined the new leadership.
