China has executed former senior banker Bai Tianhui after he was found guilty of taking more than 1.1 billion yuan (roughly Rs 14,000 crore) in bribes, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday. The punishment was carried out after the Supreme People’s Court approved the death sentence.
Bai, formerly general manager of China Huarong International Holdings — the offshore unit of state-owned bad-debt manager China Huarong Asset Management — was arrested, tried and convicted last year. The unit he once oversaw was taken over by Citic Group and renamed China Citic Financial Asset Management in January 2024.
Death sentences for corruption remain rare in China, but Bai’s case marks the second time a top Huarong executive has been put to death, reports South China Morning Post. In January 2021, his former boss, Lai Xiaomin, the ex-chairman of China Huarong, was executed after being convicted of taking almost 1.8 billion yuan in bribes, embezzling more than 25 million yuan in public assets, and bigamy. Lai was the first senior official to receive the ultimate penalty for graft since 2011, when two former deputy mayors from Hangzhou and Suzhou were executed.
Bai was sentenced by the Second Intermediate People’s Court in Tianjin in May 2024. The Supreme People’s Court upheld the verdict, saying the amount involved was “extremely large”, the circumstances “particularly serious”, and the social impact “especially severe”. His conduct, it added, had damaged the interests of the state and the public and therefore merited the harshest penalty. The court said he met close family members before the execution, but did not specify the method used.
Bai’s downfall is part of a widening anti-corruption purge sweeping through China’s financial system, following President Xi Jinping’s calls to intensify scrutiny of the sector.
