Huang Qifan, the “roly-poly figure” in Chongqing politics, was sacked and will be reviewed by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection nearly ten years after leaving office.

According to news released on Tuesday (October 13) on the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission of the Communist Party of China, Huang Qifan, the former mayor of Chongqing, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and is currently undergoing disciplinary review and supervisory investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission. State media Xinhua News Agency and CCTV News subsequently released reports.

The official report contained only a brief sentence and did not disclose the specific violations of discipline and law that Huang Qifan was suspected of.

Huang Qifan was born in May 1952 in Zhuji, Zhejiang. He served as mayor of Chongqing for nearly seven years and was a member of the 18th Central Committee. It has been nearly ten years since he stepped down as mayor of Chongqing. This time he was investigated after many years of leaving his actual post, which attracted attention from the outside world.

According to Hong Kong's "Ming Pao" report, Huang Qifan has given speeches across China as an internet celebrity economist in recent years. The "New Productivity Forum Empowering Hangzhou Enterprises to High-Quality Development" hosted by Bank of Ningbo Hangzhou Branch was originally scheduled to be held on October 26 at a five-star hotel in Hangzhou, and Huang Qifan was invited to be the guest speaker. However, it was suddenly reported that it was canceled for some reason, triggering speculation that he might be dismissed.

Public resumes show that Huang Qifan worked in Shanghai for a long time in his early years. After entering the Shanghai CCP party and government agencies in 1983, he participated in work related to the development of Pudong. During his tenure in Shanghai, he worked successively when Wu Bangguo and Huang Ju were in power in Shanghai. Since 1995, he has concurrently served as deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Government. During this period, he also served as director of the Municipal Party Committee Research Office and director of the Municipal Economic Commission.

In October 2001, Huang Qifan was transferred to the position of deputy mayor of Chongqing. The following year, he was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal Committee. Since then, he has served as the executive deputy mayor for a long time, in charge of industry, finance, taxation, finance and other work. In November 2009, he served as deputy secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee. In December of the same year, he was appointed acting mayor. In January 2010, he was officially elected as mayor of Chongqing. He served as mayor for nearly 7 years until he resigned in December 2016.

During his approximately 15 years in Chongqing, Huang Qifan served as secretary of the municipal party committee six times, including He Guoqiang, Huang Zhendong, Wang Yang, Bo Xilai, Zhang Dejiang, and Sun Zhengcai. During this period, there were many political shocks, but he always remained in the local leadership and was promoted to mayor along the way. Therefore, some media call him the "roly-poly" of Chongqing politics.

Huang Qifan's official career is closely linked to major personnel changes in Chongqing's political arena. Bo Xilai served as Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee from 2007 to 2012. In 2012, he was dismissed from his post due to the political turmoil caused by the Wang Lijun incident. The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, corruption and abuse of power. During the National "Two Sessions" in March 2010, Huang Qifan once described his working relationship with Bo Xilai as "like a fish in water".

After Bo Xilai was removed from office, Zhang Dejiang, then Vice Premier of the State Council, concurrently served as Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee. From November 2012, Sun Zhengcai succeeded Zhang Dejiang and took charge of Chongqing until 2017. Sun Zhengcai was dismissed in 2017 and sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting bribes the following year.

The two partners fell successively, but it did not affect Huang Qifan's political career. He continued to serve as mayor after Bo Xilai was removed from office until he resigned at the end of 2016; in February 2017, he was transferred to deputy chairman of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People's Congress and resigned in March 2018. In January 2018, he was also elected as a member of the fifth Chongqing CPPCC.

After resigning as mayor of Chongqing, Huang Qifan has remained active in China's financial field for a long time. As a Distinguished Professor of Fudan University and Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, he frequently attends various financial forums and expresses his views on China's macroeconomics, real estate market, capital market, financial reform and industrial development. He is well-known in the financial and economic circles and is called an "Internet celebrity economist" by the media.

During his tenure in Chongqing, he participated in the formulation of local fiscal, financial and industrial policies for a long time, actively promoted local industrial development and financial reform, and attracted much attention because of his familiarity with economic affairs.

Huang Qifan is not the only high-level official in Chongqing who has been investigated this year. On March 20 this year, the then mayor of Chongqing Hu Henghua was put on file for review and investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission for "serious violations of discipline and law."

Hu Henghua previously served as the mayor of Changsha, secretary of the Changsha Municipal Party Committee and deputy secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee. He was appointed acting mayor of Chongqing in December 2021 and was officially elected as mayor in January 2022. In 2023, he was warned and punished by the CCP for his poor organizational leadership in the remediation of illegal buildings and the investigation of potential housing safety hazards. He was responsible for the collapse of residents' self-built houses in Changsha on April 29, 2022. The accident killed more than 50 people.

After being investigated, Hu Henghua resigned as mayor of Chongqing on May 27 this year, and his qualifications as a representative of the National People's Congress were terminated on June 26. Chen Xinwu takes over as mayor of Chongqing.

In just over half a year, two current and former mayors of Chongqing have been investigated one after another, showing that this municipality is still a key area for the CCP’s “anti-corruption” campaign.