Mixing sex and politics brews great scandals and mainland leaders have recently had plenty of them on their hands. But none has set the corridors of power in Beijing more abuzz than the scandal that led to the sacking of vice-mayor Liu Zhihua .
Xinhua's statement announcing Mr Liu's downfall on June 11 was very brief, merely saying that he was sacked for 'living a decadent life' because of the irrefutable evidence received by the authorities. But overseas media and mainland analysts did not seem to buy the story, suggesting that there were other, deeper reasons.
What Xinhua failed to mention was that the irrefutable evidence was contained in six hours of videotape of Mr Liu's sex romps with his long-time mistress and other women in various hotel rooms.
The videotapes were delivered directly to the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the Communist Party's top anti-graft body, which in turn forwarded them to the mainland's top leaders.
One story making the rounds of the corridors of power was that the leaders were unanimous in their decision to sack Mr Liu immediately after suffering the humiliation of watching the entire tape.
Mr Liu's sacking is the latest in a slew of sex scandals involving high-ranking mainland officials including General Wang Shouye, a deputy naval commander, and Li Baojin, Tianjin's chief procurator. Although the monthly salaries of senior mainland officials are merely a couple of thousand yuan, many still manage to support not one but several beautiful young women as mistresses.
In the case of General Wang, he reportedly kept at least five mistresses, one of whom later reported him to the authorities, which led to his downfall. It came as little surprise that General Wang reportedly embezzled and misappropriated at least 160 million yuan of military funds for his personal pleasure.
