On November 15, 2024, it was officially announced that Tang Renjian, the former Party Secretary and Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has been expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office. He has also been stripped of his delegate qualifications for the 20th National Congress of the CCP, with his suspected criminal issues being transferred to the judiciary for review and prosecution.
Tang Renjian has been accused of failing to effectively implement the CCP Central Committee’s decisions on agricultural and rural work, accepting gifts and money improperly, engaging in banquets and travel arrangements, manipulating cadre selection to benefit others and receiving goods, using his authority to assist relatives in business activities, tacitly allowing staff around him to abuse their power for personal gain, improperly interfering in judicial activities, using his position to benefit others in business operations, project contracting, job adjustments, and illegally accepting huge sums of money.
At the age of 62, Tang Renjian had held several key positions in the CCP, including as Deputy Director of the Central Financial and Economic Leading Group Office, Deputy Director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group Office, and Deputy Group Leader of the State Council Poverty Alleviation and Development Leadership Group. In 2014, he was transferred to Guangxi and served as the Vice Chairman of the Government, and in 2017, he became the Deputy Secretary of the Gansu Provincial Committee and the Governor. In December 2020, he was appointed as the Director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group Office, Party Secretary, and Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
When Tang Renjian served as the Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for less than two years, at the end of 2022, the CCP announced the formal implementation of agricultural management law enforcement from January 1, 2023.
Subsequently, there have been reports of agricultural management personnel acting arrogantly in villages across the mainland, cutting down trees, seizing livestock from farmers, destroying crops, and forcibly implementing policies like “returning farmland to forests,” sparking public outrage. The so-called “law enforcement” by agricultural management is likened to “invaders entering the village,” provoking anger among locals, with some farmers even resorting to using sticks to drive them away.
Official reports indicate that by the end of 2022, agricultural management teams had been established at the city and county levels. The CCP has set up 2,564 institutions related to comprehensive agricultural administrative law enforcement, with over 82,000 law enforcement personnel on duty.