HONG KONG —The former chairman of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, the oil refining giant better known as Sinopec, was convicted of corruption by a court in Beijing on Wednesday, according to Xinhua, the official news agency.
The official, Chen Tonghai, 60, was given a suspended death sentence for taking $28.7 million in bribes, and Xinhua, citing the court ruling, said “all his political rights were deprived for life and all his personal property confiscated.” He is expected to serve a life term in prison.
Mr. Chen pleaded guilty in the case, paid back the amount of the bribes, and helped prosecutors with other investigations, Xinhua reported.
China continues to be plagued by high-level cases of misconduct involving business leaders, party bosses and government officials.
A year ago, for example, the first reports of children becoming ill from tainted milk began to surface in central China. By September, it was revealed that some of the country’s leading dairies and milk producers had been adding an industrial chemical, melamine, to infant formula and milk powder.
Six infants eventually died, an estimated 300,000 children were sickened and hundreds were hospitalized. Sanlu, the milk company at the center of the scandal, was bankrupted and its chairwoman, Tian Wenhua, was sentenced to life in prison.
In another prominent case, Huang Guangyu, the former chairman of Gome Group, China’s largest consumer electronics retailer, has been under arrest on charges of stock manipulation. By some measures, Mr. Huang, who resigned as the Gome chairman in January, is the wealthiest person in mainland China.
And this week, the Communist Party announced that 14 officials had been fired because of corruption in the eastern city of Chaohu. The city’s former party secretary was accused of taking $735,000 in bribes for handing out patronage jobs and promotions. Of the 36 people who bribed Mr. Zhou, Xinhua reported, 19 were government officials.
Beijing views public anger over official corruption as a potential threat to the state. The government has publicized some big cases in a drive to stamp out graft and show it is taking the matter seriously.
It is not always clear, however, whether those caught up in the crackdowns are not also victims of political machinations. Last year, the former party chief of Shanghai, Chen Liangyu, was given a lengthy prison sentence for bribery and fraud, although many analysts believe his downfall was linked to a power struggle involving China’s top leaders.
This month, four employees of the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto were arrested in China amid accusations of bribery, but details of the case remain murky and the arrests appear to be intertwined with delicate negotiations over iron ore pricing.
Mr. Chen’s crimes took place from 1999 to 2007, the court said, as he took advantage of his positions at the China Petrochemical Corporation, known as Sinopec Group, and later as deputy chairman and chairman of Sinopec Corporation, China’s second-largest oil and gas conglomerate after PetroChina. He received the illegal payments for his help with land transfers and the awarding of contracts, Xinhua said.
Mr. Chen abruptly resigned his chairmanship at Sinopec in June 2007, then was arrested that October and expelled from the Communist Party.
Mr. Chen majored in oil extraction engineering at Northeast Petroleum University, graduating in 1976, and soon turned his career toward politics. He was vice mayor and then mayor of the eastern seaport city of Ningbo, and in 1994 he took a position at the State Development Planning Commission.
