China investigates Sun Zhigang, former medical reform official, for corruption as Xi’s anti-graft campaign aims at hospitals

Sun Zhigang, a senior official once in charge of China’s medical reform and a former provincial party chief of the southwestern province of Guizhou, has been placed under a corruption probe.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection – the top disciplinary agency of China’s ruling Communist Party – said Sun, 69, was under investigation for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law”, a euphemism for corruption, in a statement on its official website on Monday night.

He is the second ministerial level official detained by the anti-corruption watchdog since the party’s 20th National Congress in October.

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Sun became well known across the nation after he was promoted to key roles in Beijing’s national economic planning agency in 2010, serving as the deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission and director of the Medical Reform Office of the State Council, given the task of tackling China’s notorious national healthcare system.

Sun became the focus of national attention in Guizhou between 2015 and 2020, when he served as vice-governor, governor and party chief. During this time, he co-led efforts to turn a one-time backwards province into a digital boom town, seeing big data deals from Apple and Alibaba land in the province.

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Those efforts were mostly led by Chen Miner, a long-time protégé of Xi who served as Guizhou’s party chief from 2015 to 2017. Chen joined the Politburo in 2017 and again secured his seat last year.

At the National People’s Congress in 2020, Sun was appointed to a semi-retirement position as the deputy chair of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee after stepping down from his Guizhou role.

A Henan-native, Sun spent most of his career in Hubei province after he left a teaching role at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in April 1985 to serve at Wuhan municipal government.

From there he was promoted to roles such as Hanyang district mayor, deputy mayor of Wuhan, mayor of Yichang. He became secretary general of the municipal party committee, a chief of staff role under the provincial party chief, in 2002.

In 2006, he was appointed executive vice-governor of Anhui province.

South China Morning Post