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Chinese taxman held for corruption

BEIJING: China has arrested a top taxman on charges of rampant bribery, officials said on Monday, two days after President Jiang Zemin swore no one would be safe from a campaign against corruption.

Li Zhen, the chief taxman in the northern province of Hebei, was accused of taking a "huge amount of bribes" between 1994 and 1999, an official of the public prosecutor's office told Reuters from Hebei.

The official declined to say how much Li was accused of taking, saying an investigation was still underway by Communist Party graftbusters and national prosecutors from Beijing. Authorities in the capital declined comment on the case.

Jiang railed against official corruption in a sternly-worded speech published on Saturday, revealing heightened worries over graft, which has made a major comeback during the past 20 years of market-oriented economic reform.

"Several leading cadres are exchanging power for money and power for sex," said Jiang, who has said corruption threatens the rule of the Communist Party, which reduced corruption hugely after it took power in 1949.

"It's reached the point where they are blinded by lust for profit - their hearts are blackened by greed, their audacity envelopes the heavens and they defy all laws human and divine!" Jiang said.

"No matter who it is, no matter how high the post, those who deserve punishment will be punished, those who deserve heavy sentences will get heavy sentences."

In March, Hu Changqing was executed for taking more than $650,000 in bribes while he was vice governor of the central province of Jiangxi.

Hu was the highest Chinese official to be executed for corruption since the Communist Party took power.-Reuters