BEIJING (Reuters) – Inspection teams from China’s Communist Party met with officials from dozens of state-owned enterprises last week to point out “poor security”, among other issues, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rule has been characterised by a drive to address perceived risks to national security in all domestic industries, as tensions with the United States and other countries in the Indo-Pacific rise.
The criticism by the Party inspection teams followed a regular probe.
“Some fail to implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party…, do not have a deep understanding of the responsibilities and missions they shoulder, and… have weak risk awareness,” the teams said, according to state-run Xinhua, which did not name any companies involved.
Other problems that stood out to the inspection teams included the risk of corruption among leaders and other “key positions” within these companies.
The largest and most strategically important state-owned companies from shipbuilding giants to key suppliers of the Chinese military, as well as banks, are all subject to probes.
The General Administration of Sport of China, the country’s top sporting body, has also been investigated.
The publication of the inspectors’ conclusions comes at a time when senior officials close to Xi, from former foreign minister Qin Gang to defence minister Li Shangfu, have been stripped of their titles or mysteriously vanished, or both.
Meanwhile, several current and former officials in China’s national football association, which is overseen by the sporting body recently inspected by the Party, have been arrested this year as part of an anti-corruption investigation.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
