China Sentences Ex-Official To Death Over $325m Bribe

A court in eastern China has sentenced a former government official to death after convicting him of accepting more than 2.21 billion yuan, equivalent to $325m, in bribes over a 30-year period, in one of the most significant corruption cases under President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.

Yang Youlin, 69, who served as executive deputy director of the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone Management Committee, was sentenced by the Changzhou Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu Province on Monday.

The court found that Yang accepted bribes from corporations and individuals between 1993 and 2023 in exchange for assistance with engineering contracts, land transfers, business operations and access to capital.

Yang was also convicted of embezzlement, offering bribes, misappropriating public funds, abuse of power and money laundering.

All his personal assets were confiscated and stripped of his political rights for life.

The court said Yang’s cooperation with investigators during the trial was noted but fell short of warranting leniency given the scale of his crimes.

“The bribery amount was especially huge, the circumstances of his crimes were especially serious, the social impact was especially egregious and his actions caused especially major losses to the interests of the state and the people,” the court said in its judgment.

Yang pleaded guilty and expressed remorse during his final statement, according to state media.

The case is among the harshest punishments handed down for economic crimes in China in recent years.

In 2024, Li Jianping, a former official in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was executed after being convicted of bribery and collusion with a criminal syndicate.

In 2021, Lai Xiaomin, former board chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Company, was executed after being found guilty of bribery, embezzlement and bigamy.

Yang was investigated as part of Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign, which has seen nearly five million officials investigated and found guilty since 2012, according to a March 2025 report by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence.