‘Disregarded Party Discipline’ : Chinese Official Expelled From Party for Adultery

BEIJING —  China unveiled its own version of the Gary Hart scandal Friday.

The Chinese Communist Party announced that it has expelled a prominent official from its ranks on grounds that the man engaged in sexual misconduct. He was said to have committed adultery with a married woman.

“As a leading party cadre, (he) disregarded party discipline and the country’s laws to satisfy his own selfish desires, to pursue sex and ingratiate himself with (the woman),” declared the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection.

In a lengthy decision published Friday in all leading Chinese newspapers, the disciplinary group warned that Communist Party members “must strictly abide by socialist laws and morals (and) firmly resist the corrosion of the exploiting classes’ corrupt style of thought.”

Deputy Party Secretary

The official, named Ni Xiance, had until recently been the governor of Jiangxi province in southern China. An engineer by training, he had run the provincial government since 1985. He was also the province’s deputy Communist Party secretary, one of the three highest-ranking party officials in the jurisdiction.

Until this week, Ni’s case had been something of a mystery.

Last October, Ni was suddenly removed as governor because of what were called “serious mistakes.” Early this year, China’s procurator general announced that he was investigating Ni for “favoritism and fraudulent practices.”

Yet the exact nature and details of his transgressions were not made public on these occasions.

Favoritism Alleged

The decision expelling Ni from the Communist Party said that since March, 1985, he had committed adultery with a woman named Guo Xiaohong, who worked in the Hong Kong office of the Jiangxi province tourist department.

Ni was accused of having used his influence to promote the woman, to increase her wages and to approve an overseas “inspection tour” for her in an unidentified country. He also urged local officials to admit her into the Communist Party.

Furthermore, the disciplinary commission said, while governor, Ni helped the woman’s brother, Guo Yong, by coming up with the equivalent of $600,000 in local government funds to buy video recorders which Guo Yong had smuggled into the country.

“Some leading cadres cannot stand up to the invasions and attacks of bourgeois liberal thought,” the commission for disciplinary inspection declared.

‘Liberal Life Style’

” . . . There are a small minority (of party members) who, once they get power, don’t pay attention to their own ideological shifts and pursue a corrupt bourgeois liberal life style.”

The news accounts in the Chinese press also stressed the fact that Ni had joined the Communist Party in 1966, at the beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution.

The disciplinary commission warned party officials that in selecting and promoting cadres, they should stress “actual achievements” and avoid nepotism.

“Even more, don’t let those who made mistakes during the Cultural Revolution and who haven’t repented be selected and re-selected (for top positions),” the commission said.