Chinese despot Xi Jinping jails minister for LIFE in huge crackdown on dissent ahead of Communist Party conference where he will be given third time as president

• It is customary for the party to sentence high-profile officials before congress 
• Deputy police minister is said to have ‘seriously damaging the unity of the party’
• Sun Lijun was convicted for collecting 646 million yuan ($91 million) in bribes 
• As well as leading a crime gang of officials, and manipulating the stock market

A former Chinese deputy policing minister has been jailed for life in a huge crackdown on dissent by Chinese despot Xi Jinping. 

Sun Lijun was handed life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole, but did have his death sentence commuted ahead of a Communist Party conference next month.

State press agency Xinhua reported that Sun, 53, was convicted of collecting 646 million yuan ($91 million) in bribes, leading a crime gang of government officials, and manipulating the stock market.

He also denounced for ‘seriously damaging the unity of the party’ by state media CCTV. 

In the run up to the once-every-five-years congress, the party likes to take the opportunity to arrest and sentence high ranking officials to remind them of their place. 

Xi is also hoping to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term at the congress which no leader has done since Chairman Mao. 

The Telegraph reported that a ‘military coup’ which was claimed to have put Xi under house arrest on Saturday was not true amid fears that he will not get his wish to stay Chinese president. 

Despot Xi Jinping’s state broadcasters denounced Sun Lijun (pictured on China’s CCTV in court) for ‘seriously damaging the unity of the party’ ahead of a meeting where the Chinese president is hoping to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader

Chinese President Xi Jinping (pictured this September at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting)  is hoping to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader

Xi vowed to keep targeting both the ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’, a reference to elite officials and low-level bureaucrats, in his battle against corruption at last congress in 2017

In January, China’s Public Security Ministry, where Sun was a deputy minister until 2020, held a meeting to denounce him and vowed to eradicate the ‘venomous’ influence of his ‘political clique’. 

This week, other officials whom state broadcaster CCTV had said were members of Sun’s ‘political clique’ also received long jail sentences.

 They include former Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua and three former police chiefs of Shanghai, Chongqing and Shanxi provinces. 

Xi vowed to keep targeting both the ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’, a reference to elite officials and low-level bureaucrats, in his battle against corruption at last congress in 2017. 

Falling from grace each year are also hundreds of thousands of officials who violate the Communist Party’s ‘discipline and laws’, including in recent times failure to contain COVID-19 outbreaks. The latest congress starts on October 16.

Sun was convicted by the court in the northeastern city of Changchun of collecting 646 million yuan ($91 million) in bribes, China Central TV reported on its website.

Sun was charged with using his official position in 2018 to manipulate stock trading to help a trader avoid losses. He also was accused of selling official jobs and abandoning his post during the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Fu also pleaded guilty to taking bribes to help hide criminal activity. Earlier news reports accused him of joining ‘Sun Lijun’s political gang.’

Sun (pictured in April 2020 when he was then a vice minister of public security), 53, was handed a suspended death sentence on Friday that will be commuted to life imprisonment after two years, with no possibility of parole, according to a state news agency Xinhua

The party official, Wang, was charged with taking 440 million yuan ($62 million) in bribes to help with business deals or in securing loans and jobs. He was accused of offering 97 million yuan ($14 million) in bribes to Sun and other officials.

The ruling party’s anti-corruption agency accused Sun last year of having ‘extremely inflated political ambition.’ It said he engaged in unspecified ‘superstitious activities.’

Earlier, Sun was named in a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department against Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn to compel Wynn to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it says he performed for the Chinese government.

The lawsuit says senior officials including Sun wanted Wynn’s help in trying to have a Chinese citizen’s visa application denied, according to the complaint. Beijing wanted the man, who was charged with corruption and asked for political asylum, returned to China.

There have been rumours swirling on social media, similar to when Xi became party leader, that he will be replaced.  

‘There’s no evidence of a coup in China and no reason to even slightly think there has been one,’ said Nathan Ruser, a researcher, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who focuses on China. 

‘Xi’s decade of intense political consolidation behind him can’t be overturned by a missed meeting or a few cancelled flights.’ 

But Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore who studies China and US relations, said: ‘The spread of the rumour indicates belief in its plausibility.’

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