The chairman of Guizhou's biggest power company is being investigated for alleged involvement in the stripping of state assets, influential financial magazine Caijing reported yesterday.
Xiang Dehong , of the Guizhou Jinyuan Group, has been placed under shuanggui - an internal disciplinary measure which confines Communist Party members to house arrest and makes them confess their wrongdoing.
'It happened all of a sudden and was directly overseen by the top-level Central Commission for Discipline Inspection,' the mainland magazine quoted an anonymous senior official in the power sector as saying.
Caijing quoted another source, from the Chinese Electricity Enterprises Union, as saying that Mr Xiang was detained because his company had breached state regulations by transferring state assets to private hands.
'It's way beyond a personal case of corruption,' the source told the magazine.
Mr Xiang, 60, has spent his entire career in the electricity business. Before heading Jinyuan - a de facto private power producer - he served as general manager of Guizhou Province Power Corp, a state-owned power company in the southwestern province that was transformed into the Guizhou Grid Co six years ago during power industry reforms.
