China Communists Bust Corrupt Member

Continuing a crackdown on corruption within its ranks, China's ruling Communist Party expelled a senior official Thursday and ordered him prosecuted for allegedly taking a fortune in bribes to marry his mistress.

Party investigators say Cheng Kejie, a deputy chairman of the national legislature who headed a poor southern province, took kickbacks to approve building projects, promotions and commodity deals, amassing $4.6 million.

For years, corruption has pervaded public life here, undermining popular acceptance of communist rule. Cheng is one of the most senior officials ensnared in a recently renewed years-long anti-corruption campaign.

His allegedly ill-gotten take is among the largest ever divulged by the government, far surpassing the $850,000 in illegal earnings for which a deputy provincial governor was executed last month.

Chinese leaders hope to use such high-level prosecutions to prove their determination to punish the powerful and assuage public anger over pervasive official graft.

"Our party will definitely show no mercy," to the corrupt, the party newspaper People's Daily said in an editorial read on state television Thursday. "There are no hiding places in the party for corrupt officials."

Party leaders approved Cheng's expulsion and his prosecution following a probe by the party's internal watchdog commission, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Among Cheng's misdeeds, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection found, was adultery. It accused him of plotting with his mistress, a married woman named Li Ping, to stash away a fortune for their future marriage.

"Cheng's degeneration happened because he abandoned his ideals and belief in communism, fell victim to the temptations of women and money and took advantage of the power endowed by the party and the people to make personal gains," Xinhua quoted commission spokesman Yuan Chunqing as saying.

It is far from clear whether such disclosures have done anything other than increase public cynicism. Many Chinese and party functionaries believe Beijing is really using the campaign to settle scores with officials now in disfavor.

Already, investigations have shaken the party elite in three provinces. One, a probe into smuggling through the prosperous port of Xiamen, has reached into the center of power, implicating the wife of Politburo member and Beijing party secretary Jia Qinglin, a protege of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

But Jiang has moved to protect Jia. He has ordered officials to deny any connection to the investigation and used state media to boost his protege's image as a public servant.

In Thursday's case, Cheng's downfall is said to have tainted Li Peng, the party's No. 2 official and the head of the national legislature, party officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was Li who brought Cheng to Beijing.

Cheng allegedly started a six-year spree of bribe-taking in 1992. He took $3.1 milion in Chinese and Hong Kong money to lower the price on land sold for a parking lot, the news agency said.

After that, he took payoffs in Chinese, U.S. and Hong Kong currencies to award building contracts, approve promotions for 13 officials and allocate companies cut-rate government sugar, cooking oil and other commodities.

"Cheng confessed to all the ... illegal acts and expressed his desire to return all his illegal income to the nation," Xinhua said.

Although Hong Kong newspapers reported that Cheng has been under house arrest since August, his case only became public last month.

By CHARLES HUTZLER