The Zhou Yongkang case refers to a case involving Zhou Yongkang, former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, who retired in 2012. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) case is officially called the Zhou Yongkang serious violations of discipline case while the criminal case is officially called the Zhou Yongkang bribery, abuse of power, and intentional disclosure of state secrets case.

Zhou was investigated internally by the CCP starting in 2013, and expelled from the CCP after the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced the filing of a case for investigation in 2014. The case involved Zhou Yongkang's serious violation of discipline, and subsequently, after being investigated and arrested by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, he was transferred to the First Branch of the Tianjin Municipal People's Procuratorate in 2015 and prosecuted by the Tianjin First Intermediate People's Court, being sentenced to life imprisonment. The case involved Zhou's bribery, abuse of power, and intentional disclosure of state secrets. The "Zhou Yongkang case" in a broader sense also includes a series of criminal cases involving his relatives, related businessmen, and many officials from his faction, including Zhou Yongkang's son Zhou Bin, Sichuan businessman Liu Han, and Zhou Yongkang's secretary Ji Wenlin.

The scope of the Zhou Yongkang case and its series of cases covered many fields such as politics, economy, and culture, spanned decades, and covered the regions of Northeast China, Southwestern China, East China, and Beijing, and the central government. The officials involved almost encompassed the entire cadre system of the CCP, from county-level, department-level, provincial-level to national-level. Zhou was the first member of the Politburo Standing Committee to be investigated for corruption and expelled from the CCP since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. He was also the highest-ranking official to be investigated. Zhou Yongkang's downfall was seen by outsiders as breaking the unspoken political rule of "no punishment for Standing Committee members" that had been rumored in the public since the Deng Xiaoping era. Zhou was imprisoned in Qincheng Prison, where he was said to have a vegetable garden to grow vegetables to pass the time.

Background Zhou Yongkang is a former senior leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He led the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) from 1996 to 1998 before serving as Minister of Land and Natural Resources until 1999. Subsequently, Zhou became the Party Secretary of Sichuan. From 2003 to 2008, Zhou served as State Councillor, the Minister of Public Security, the Political Commissar of the People's Armed Police, a Member on the Secretariat of the Central Committee, and the Deputy Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. In October 2007, the 17th Central Committee elected Zhou to the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), where he served as the Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. He retired at the 18th Party Congress in 2012.

Zhou retired at the 18th Party Congress held in November 2012, an event which saw Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, ascend to become China's paramount leader. In a significant change to China's top ruling council, Zhou's Political and Legal Affairs Commission portfolio did not feature in the new Standing Committee at all; instead, the committee had shrunk to its pre-2002 size of seven instead of nine members. This was followed by wide-ranging reforms to local Zhengfawei organs. For example, the practice of lower-level Zhengfawei chiefs concurrently holding the office of police chief (i.e. Public Security) and concurrent government posts was gradually phased out, and the Zhengfawei was discouraged from directly interfering with ongoing investigations or cases. These reforms signaled a reduction in the executive authority of Zhengfawei chiefs in favor of better checks and balances in the legal system, and a restoration of the Zhengfawei in a policy oversight role rather than being an executive organ, which had been the case under Zhou.

Trials NameRankingPosition/Former PositionRelationship with Zhou YongkangDateStatusZhou YongkangNational-levelFormer member of the Politburo Standing Committee and former Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs CommissionN/A29 July 2014Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to life imprisonment Jiang JieminMinisterial levelDirector of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State CouncilSubsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation1 September 2013Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 16 years in prison Li DongshengDeputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Public SecuritySubordinate during the Political and Legal Affairs Commission period20 December 2013Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 15 years in prison Li ChongxiChairman of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative ConferenceSubordinate during the Sichuan period29 December 2013Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Zhou BenshunSecretary of the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial People's CongressSubordinate during the Political and Legal Affairs Commission period24 July 2015Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 15 years in prison Li ChunchengVice-ministerial levelDeputy Secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist PartySubordinate during the Sichuan period6 December 2013Expelled from the party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 13 years in prison Guo YongxiangChairman of the Sichuan Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles and former Vice GovernorZhou Yongkang's secretary22 June 2013Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 20 years in prison Wang YongchunVice President of China National Petroleum CorporationJiang Jiemin's subordinate26 August 2013Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 20 years in prison Ji WenlinVice Governor of HainanSecretary during the Ministry of Land and Resources18 February 2014Expelled from the Party, dismissed from public office, and sentenced to 12 years in prison Tao YuchunDepartment-levelGeneral Manager of Kunlun Utilization, a subsidiary of PetroChinaLi Hualin's subordinate20 March 2013Sentenced to 23 years in prison and fined ¥‎7.5 million renminbi. Jia XiaoyeChina Central Television workZhou Yongkang's wifeSentenced to nine years in prison and fined ¥‎1 million renminbi. Zhou BinShareholders of Zhongxu Sunshine Energy Technology Co., Ltd.Zhou Yongkang's son1 December 2013Sentenced to 18 years in prison and fined ¥‎350.2 million renminbi. Zhou FengChairman of Beijing Honghan and shareholder of Hongfeng Potash MineZhou Yongkang's nephew1 December 2013Sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined ¥‎59 million renminbi.

Related cases

Zhou Bin case Zhou Yongkang's eldest son, Zhou Bin, studied Science and Technology English at Southwest Petroleum University from 1989 to 1992, and was an alumnus of Mi Xiaodong and Zhu Liping. Later, he went to the University of Texas at Dallas to study, where he met Huang Yusheng and Zhan Minli's daughter, Huang Wan, and married her. The two returned to China in 2001. During his studies in the United States, Zhou Bin sold foreign oil equipment to Chinese oil companies through his connections. His main business was reselling oil equipment, reselling oilfield equity, obtaining projects as a supplier of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and holding shares in unverified companies.

In 2001, under the control of Zhou Bin, Sichuan businessman Wu Bing established Zhongxu Investment. Zhongxu Industry, registered in March 2006, has two hydropower development companies, one real estate development company and several hydropower and real estate business extension companies. It mainly developed two hydropower projects: the Dadu River Longtoushi Hydropower Station with a total installed capacity of 700,000 kilowatts and an investment of ¥‎5.3 billion renminbi, and the Geshizha Hydropower Station with a total installed capacity of 450,000 kilowatts and an investment of ¥‎3.2 billion renminbi. Zhan Minli held a partial controlling stake in the Dadu River Longtoushi Hydropower Station.

In 2004, Zhou Bin, who had returned to China, established Beijing Zhongxu Sunshine Petroleum and Natural Gas Technology Co., Ltd., which was managed by Wu Bing. The major shareholders of Zhongxu Sunshine were initially Zhou Bin and Zhan Minli, and later Zhan Minli sold his shares to Zhou Bin. Shortly after its establishment, Zhongxu Sunshine Energy won the information development project of the retail management system of more than 8,000 gas stations of more than 10 provincial branches of PetroChina. It also participated in the construction of PetroChina's refined oil logistics distribution system and engineering project management system and information system, and had equipment sales relationships with PetroChina's Tarim oil field, Jilin oil field, Changqing oil field and Liaohe oil field branches.

In January 2007, Mi Xiaodong invested in the establishment of Shaanxi Qiuhai Jiqing Petroleum Technology Co., Ltd. in Xi'an. At the end of the same year, Shaanxi Degan Petroleum Technology Co., Ltd. was established at the same office address in Xi'an (the actual controller of the two companies was Zhou Bin). The two companies acquired the Changyin and Changhai blocks of the Changqing Oilfield Petroleum Cooperative Development Project at a low price of about ¥‎10 million to ¥‎20 million renminbi. Mi Xiaodong sold Degan and its Changyin project to Wang Letian, chairman of Jilin private company Huahai Energy Group, for ¥‎550 million renminbi. Later, Wang Letian discovered that the exploitable area of the Changyin project was only 13 square kilometers, less than 50 square kilometers, and demanded to renegotiate with Mi Xiaodong and Zhou Bin. As a result, Qiuhai Jiqing's Changhai project and a small oil field in Wangpanshan were compensated to Wang Letian.

In 2009, Zhan Minli and Mi Xiaodong jointly established Beijing Qiuhai Xurong Real Estate Development Company and obtained the qualification to construct the public rental housing project in the NC-01 block of Nankou Farm, Beijing. In August 2010, Zhan Minli transferred most of the 15.5 million shares of Beijing Yunying Xurong Investment Management Co., Ltd., which controlled Qiuhai Xurong, to Beijing Tianheng Lianxin Real Estate Co., Ltd. Between 2010 and 2011, Zhou Bin acted as an intermediary to assist Mi Xiaodong in selling several batches of oil and gas extraction equipment to Chinese operating companies that cooperated with the Iraqi state-owned company Missan Oilfield.