On June 11th, Luo Baoming, former Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hainan Provincial Committee and former Hainan Province Governor, was officially charged. Prior to this announcement, official reports accused Luo Baoming of engaging in corruption, involvement with political swindlers, and other misconduct.
According to a report by CCTV, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate received information that Luo Baoming, Vice Chairman of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress Committee of Overseas Chinese Affairs, was under investigation for alleged bribery. The case was concluded, and the First Branch of the Shanghai People’s Procuratorate was designated to prosecute the case. Recently, the First Branch of the Shanghai People’s Procuratorate has filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court.
The indictment alleges that Luo Baoming, leveraging his positions as Director of the Tianjin Municipal Commerce Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee, Governor of Hainan Province, Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee, and Vice Chairman of the Twelfth National People’s Congress Committee of Overseas Chinese Affairs, illicitly sought benefits for others, unlawfully accepted property from others, and the amount involved was particularly enormous, warranting prosecution for bribery.
Luo Baoming, a Tianjin native, previously served as Director of the Tianjin Municipal Commerce Committee, member of the Tianjin Municipal Committee, and Minister of the Propaganda Department.
In July 2001, Luo became the Deputy Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee, followed by his appointment as the Governor of Hainan Province in 2007, and eventually the Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee in August 2011.
In April 2017, before reaching the age of 65, Luo relinquished his position as Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee and transitioned to Vice Chairman of the Twelfth National People’s Congress Committee of Overseas Chinese Affairs. The following year, he became Vice Chairman of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress Committee of Overseas Chinese Affairs until stepping down in March 2023.
Luo Baoming previously served as an alternate member of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Central Committees of the CPC and as a member of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Central Committees.
On July 25th last year, Luo Baoming surrendered and was investigated after resigning from his position as Secretary of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee for seven years.
Luo Baoming became the second “tiger” to fall after Liu Xingtai, the former Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the Hainan Provincial Committee, and the first former Provincial Committee Secretary in Hainan to be investigated since the province was established. He is the third former Provincial Committee Secretary investigated after Sun Zhigang of Guizhou and Wu Yingjie of Tibet since the Nineteenth National Congress of the CPC.
Luo Baoming is the first senior CPC official to be investigated since the second half of last year.
Earlier reports in the media indicated that Luo Baoming was considered a close confidant of former CPC leader Jiang Zemin and a staunch ally. In 2015, Jiang Zemin, accompanied by three generations of his family, climbed the Dongshan Ridge in Hainan with Luo Baoming, viewed as a signal of “resurgence” and a challenge to the current authorities.
The downfall of Luo Baoming illustrates that internal power struggles within the CPC have never ceased.
On January 24th this year, it was officially announced that Luo Baoming was expelled from the Party for severe violations of discipline and the law, losing all entitlements.
The announcement stated that Luo Baoming had long engaged in improper relations with political swindlers, causing significant financial losses and adverse political influence, resisting investigation, promoting superstitions, failing to truthfully address problems, allowing relatives to interfere in key appointments of cadres, illegally selecting and appointing officials, receiving goods and money without charge from enterprises, interfering in disciplinary and law enforcement activities, greedily corrupting, using public power for personal gain, engaging in corrupt practices, and exploiting his positions to facilitate power-money transactions to benefit others in business operations and contracting projects.
On February 10th, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the CPC reported that Luo Baoming had been arrested on suspicion of bribery.