China Executes Former Huarong Executive for Graft in Major Anti-Corruption Move

China Executes Former Huarong Executive for Graft in Major Anti-Corruption Move

Death sentences for corruption in China are frequently issued with a two-year reprieve and subsequently commuted to life imprisonment.

RMN News Anti-Corruption Desk
New Delhi | December 9, 2025

China executed Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of China Huarong International Holdings (CHIH), on Tuesday – December 9, 2025 – after he was found guilty of corruption. Bai was accused of accepting more than $156 million in bribes between 2014 and 2018 while offering favorable treatment in project acquisition and financing.

Bai Tianhui was the ex-general manager of CHIH, a subsidiary of China Huarong Asset Management, which operates as one of the country’s largest asset management funds focusing on bad-debt management.

The legal proceedings confirmed that Bai’s sentence was carried out on Tuesday morning in Tianjin after he met with close relatives. His conviction, first handed down in May 2024 by a court in Tianjin, was upheld in February despite an appeal.

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The Supreme People’s Court (SPC), China’s highest court, confirmed the decision after review. The SPC stated that Bai’s crimes were “extremely serious,” involved an “exceptionally large amount” of bribes, and caused “exceptionally significant losses” to the interests of the state and the people, and that the social impact was “especially egregious”.

Notably, Bai’s death sentence was not suspended. Death sentences for corruption in China are frequently issued with a two-year reprieve and subsequently commuted to life imprisonment.

Bai’s execution highlights the continued intensity of President Xi Jinping’s years-long anti-graft crackdown. Huarong has been a major target of this campaign; its former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed in January 2021 for receiving bribes totaling $253 million, and several other Huarong executives have been caught in anti-corruption investigations.

Bai is the latest high-ranking figure to face severe punishment in the crackdown focused on China’s finance industry. Recent actions against financial leaders include the investigation of Yi Huiman, the former chief of China’s top securities regulator, who was placed under scrutiny for corruption in September.

In March, Li Xiaopeng, the former head of the state-owned banking giant Everbright Group, received 15 years in prison for taking bribes worth 60 million yuan. Furthermore, Liu Liange, the former chairman of the Bank of China, received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve in November 2024 for accepting 121 million yuan in bribes.

While supporters argue that the anti-corruption campaign promotes clean governance, critics suggest it also provides Xi with the power to purge political rivals. China classifies death penalty statistics as a state secret.