China ex-party boss gets suspended death sentence for taking $25 million in bribes

China has jailed the former Communist Party boss of Hangzhou, the eastern city that’s home to Ant Group Co. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., for life after finding that he took some $25 million in bribes over his career.

Zhou Jiangyong, 55, was given a suspended death sentence on Tuesday on corruption charges, state broadcaster China Central Television reported. A court in Chuzhou, Anhui province, said Zhou helped individuals and firms secure rights to use land and contracts for projects, Bloomberg reports.

Zhou was earlier linked to Ant, though prosecutors didn’t name the fintech company or Alibaba. Last year, he became the first cadre to be ousted from the party over corruption charges relating to the “disorderly expansion of capital,” a slogan central to President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on tech companies.

Beijing launched a sweeping campaign targeting the private sector in late 2020 by forcing Ant to scrap what would have been the world’s largest initial public offering. That scrutiny later expanded to almost every sector of the internet, from e-commerce to social media, and ensnared many of the country’s largest companies, including Alibaba.

Earlier this month, China imposed more than $1 billion in fines on Ant and Tencent Holdings Ltd., signalling an end to the crackdown.

The ruling Communist Party’s evolving stance toward the private sector has become one of the most closely watched developments in global markets in recent years, with some observers even calling China’s sprawling internet sector uninvestable.