China probes Nanjing city chief for graft

[SHANGHAI] China is investigating the Communist Party chief of the major eastern city of Nanjing, the country's corruption watchdog said in a statement on Sunday, as the country's corruption crackdown drags in a growing number of top officials.

Yang Weize, Nanjing's top official, is being investigated for suspected serious violations of party disciplines and laws, Beijing's usual euphemism for graft, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said on its website.

China's president, Xi Jinping, is leading an aggressive campaign against official corruption. The investigations are tearing down once-untouchable Party, military and business leaders and rolling up their powerful networks of relatives and allies.

The senior victim of the crackdown so far is the former internal security chief Zhou Yongkang, who was a member of China's most powerful decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, until he retired in 2012.

Nanjing, which has a population of close to 4 million, was once China's capital city and was the scene of a massacre in 1937 by Japanese troops, an event which still plays a key role in defining China's relationship with Japan.

Mr Yang, who took on his current role as Nanjing Party chief in 2011, is also member of the local Standing Committee in Jiangsu province, the statement said.

REUTERS