China purges third Politburo member in deepening anti-graft drive

China has expelled Ma Xingrui, a former Politburo member, from the ruling Communist Party on corruption charges, ​making him the third sitting member of the elite decision-making body to be purged since 2025 as President Xi Jinping intensifies an anti-graft ‌campaign.

Ma, who also served as the deputy head of the central rural work leading group, was placed under investigation in April over suspected “serious violation of law and discipline” — the party’s euphemism for corruption. Ma’s membership in the country’s parliament was also stripped last month.

“A decision to purge someone of Ma Xingrui’s rank is taken at the very top, with Xi Jinping’s backing,” said ​Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt, professor of modern Chinese studies at the University of Zurich. He noted the language used by the anti-graft watchdog on Ma ​was “extremely serious”, with some highly unusual charges.

Investigators found that Ma had sought benefits for others in the selection and appointment ⁠of officials and improperly arranged jobs for others, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement.

He “connived at, failed to detect and failed to rein in ​serious violations of discipline and law, and suspected criminal conduct, by staff members around him”, CCDI said.

A probe into Guo Yonghang, Ma’s chief of staff during his tenure ​as the top official in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen from 2015 to 2016, was announced in March. Guo had risen through the ranks in the southern province of Guangdong as Ma became governor of the economic powerhouse.

A number of officials in Xinjiang who received promotions after Ma became party chief of the northwestern border region in late 2021 have ​also been probed in recent months.

‘Rampant family corruption’

Ma illegally accepted gifts, helped relatives purchase property at below-market prices and engaged in exchanges involving power and money ​for sex, according to the report.

Ma allowed his family members to leverage his official influence to obtain huge benefits, engaging in what authorities described as large-scale “family corruption”, while illegally accepting ‌huge sums ⁠of money and property. CCDI did not specify the amount involved.

“What is uncommon is that all of it is framed as ‘extremely serious in nature’, a top-severity tag that occurs in well under 1% of cases,” said Mittelstaedt.

While some senior officials have been given a “soft landing” before, for Ma, whose seat “would in any case have turned over” at next year’s Party Congress, “the family dimension … is most likely what tipped the balance towards prosecution rather than a quiet exit”, he added.

Ma could not ​be reached for comment.

The expulsion marks the ​latest escalation in Xi’s years-long ⁠fight to root out corruption, which has ensnared senior party, government and military officials. Millions of people within China’s vast bureaucracy have been investigated to varying degrees, according to an official tally.

In January, China opened a corruption investigation into Zhang Youxia, the military’s ​most senior general. He Weidong, a former vice chair of the Central Military Commission, was expelled from the Communist Party ​in October last year.

Scientist-turned-administrator

Ma, ⁠a rocket-scientist-turned-administrator, enjoyed a meteoric rise in Chinese officialdom after becoming an executive at China’s main spacecraft and missile manufacturer, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, in the 2000s.

He worked for more than a decade in China’s state-owned aerospace industry, overseeing some of the country’s most important space programmes.

Ma’s fall from grace comes amid deepening scrutiny over ⁠China’s defence ​and aerospace sectors. In February, prosecutors accused Zhang Jianhua, a former deputy director of the State ​Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, of bribery and abuse of influence. Zhang served as deputy director under Ma, who headed the defence industry regulator in 2013.

Three Chinese lawmakers with ​ties to the defence, aerospace and nuclear sectors were removed from their positions in that same month.