China's "People's Daily" newspaper announced that in 2006 the Chinese Communist Party expelled 21,120 members for breaking party rules, particularly for corruption. During the same period, the CCP fired 2,744 corrupt members from party posts, according to the annual report from the CCP's Central Committee of Inspection and Discipline.
Another 8, 777 members were placed under observation so that their discipline could be determined. Gan Yisheng, who is responsible for CCP's members discipline and supervision, guaranteed that the party punished 97,260 other members for involvement in corruption cases.
According to Gan, who is also the vice-secretary of the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, of all the targeted members, over 80 percent did not pay their taxes, accepted bribes or violated the party's financing rules.
For years, the Chinese government has been fighting a war against corruption. Hu Jintao has warned that corruption is so generalised within the party's 70 million members that it poses a real threat to the legitimacy of the CCP.
In September 2006, Chen Lyangyu, a member of the Chinese Politburo and Shangai's party leader, was removed from office for alleged involvement in a US$400 million scheme to use a municipal pension fund in speculative real estate deals. The scandal also involved 20 businessmen.
Qiu Xiaohua of the Chinese Statistics Institute was also recently accused of bribery and polygamy. According to Gan Yisheng, he is under custody and awaiting trial, which should begin soon.