Li Guangchang, a member of the science and technology committee of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is suspected of committing serious violations of discipline and law, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement on its website.
Li is a former director of the nuclear fuel division of CNNC, a state-owned enterprise that oversees China’s civilian and military nuclear programmes.
He also played a key role in the innovation and development of China’s hi-performance “CF series” fuel assemblies, according to publicly available information.
Domestic development of nuclear fuel assemblies is essential for “realising the dream of a strong nuclear power country” and exporting China-made nuclear power, Li said in a report in 2017, when he was chief of key science and technology projects under the CF programme.
The following year, as a deputy director of CNCC’s science and technology committee, Li took part in drafting the “China Nuclear Energy Development Report”. Last April, he participated in an atomic energy research conference as a senior consultant to the committee, according to Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper.
CNNC is mainly engaged in research and development, construction, production and operation in the fields of nuclear power, fuel cycle and applications, environmental protection and nuclear engineering, according to the company website.
Xi’s call to deepen the clean-up drive came as he warned that the battle against corruption remained “severe and complex”. There should be “absolutely no mercy” in rooting out the problem, he told the CCDI’s third plenary session on January 8.
Li’s case follows a series of crackdowns in China’s military-industrial sector that has targeted senior executives, such as in aerospace-defence enterprises.
They are Wu Yansheng, chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; Liu Shiquan, chairman of the board of the China North Industries Group Corporation, or Norinco Group; and Wang Changqing, deputy manager of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.