China Investigates Kang Rixin, Nuclear Power Chief

by Barbara McPherson | August 10, 2009 at 09:55 am

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China is investigating Kang Rixin, president and party secretary of the China National Nuclear Corporation(CNNC) for "grave violations of discipline".
China is spending the equivalent of billions of dollars to expand its nuclear power stations to lessen its dependence on foreign oil and gas.

Nuclear plants account for about 2% of China's power generation and the government wants that to double by 2020.

Kang was elected as a member of the central party committee's discipline inspection panel – the body now investigating him – in 2002. The state council, China's cabinet, appointed him head of CNNC the following year.

He is among several high-ranking officials caught up recently in disciplinary inquiries. Xu Zongheng, the mayor of Shenzhen – one of China's wealthiest cities – was fired for corruption last week.

Chen Tonghai, a former chairman of the Chinese oil giant Sinopec Corp, was sentenced to death in July, with a two-year reprieve, in what was believed to be China's biggest bribery case. He was convicted of illegally receiving 196m yuan between 1999 and June 2007.

It looks as if the central government is taking action against the highly placed corrupt officials.