Chen Xitong - Biography

Biography

Born on June 10, 1930 in Sichuan Province, China. He was known to be a diligent student and was raised by his widowed mother. Due to stringent family economic conditions, he applied for Beijing Normal University due to low tuition fees. However, with outstanding academic achievement, he was accepted by Beijing University with scholarship. He eventually married the daughter of his college professor and has two sons with her. Chen Xiaoxi and Chen Xiaotong.

A graduate of Peking University, he shared close ties to Deng Xiaoping and his family. Chen was once considered a possible successor to Deng Xiaoping. During the 1980s, Chen Xitong became a fan of American TV series Hunter when it was first aired in China, and in his speeches, Chen had made various references to the TV series.

Chen Xitong was the mayor of Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Being the Mayor of Beijing during that time and due to many years of Communist background, he followed the direction of China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, and was used as a scapegoat to be responsible for the declaration of martial law in Beijing which led to the latter scene.

In a May 2012 book based on interviews with Chen, he denied the corruption charges brought against him, calling them "the worst miscarriage of justice involving a high-level leader since the Cultural Revolution, or since 1989... an absurd miscarriage of justice." He also expressed that the was "sorry" for the events of June 4, 1989, saying that no one should have died in the crackdown. "I believe the truth of the 1989 episode will be uncovered one day," he said.

A onetime rival to Jiang Zemin, Chen, being the leader of "Beijing clique", overpowered Jiang's newly obtained authority at the time. Thereforth, led to Chen's downfall in 1995 during an anti-corruption campaign led by Jiang's Shanghai clique. Clique members Zeng Qinghong and Jia Qinglin played key roles in the campaign that eventually led to Chen's arrest; some observers view Chen's downfall as a political struggle between Chen and Jiang. It was later revealed that Chen's embezzlement was a relatively low amount in comparison to other corrupted cadres who embezzled much more but were left unscathed in the so-called anti-corruption campaigns.

Chen's Vice Mayor, Wang Baosen, committed suicide during 1994 due to reasons yet to be clairified. However, such incident became the leading fuse of this "Beijing clique" and "Shanghai clique" power struggle. It was later verified internally that the amount of money Chen embezzled was directed to build vacational recreation centers which catered to most top-tier politicians in Beijing at the time. He was also accused of having extramarital affair with lover, He Ping, of 15 years; which, was considered a violation of moral code for being member of communist party. In 1998, Chen Xitong was given a 16 year jail sentence on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty. His son, Chen Xiaotong, was also sentenced. Chen was released early from jail in 2006, officially due to reasons of ill health.

The novel The Wrath of Heaven — the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Action (天怒—反貪局在行動; pinyin: Tiān nù—Fǎntānjú zài Xíngdòng) published in 1996 by the Yuanfang Publishing House of Inner Mongolia and quickly banned in China is a fictionalized account of the Chen Xitong case written from the point of a view of an investigator.