Lü Xiwen
Lü Xiwen is a Chinese politician who served as the Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Beijing between 2013 and 2015, and prior to that, the head of the Organization Department of the Beijing Party Committee. She was investigated for corruption in 2015, and later expelled from the Communist Party.
Life and career
Lü was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. During the Cultural Revolution, she was part of production teams performing manual labour in rural Beijing. She joined the Chinese Communist Party in August 1982. She has a degree in textiles engineering from the Beijing Industry College.She then worked in the Communist Youth League organization at her alma mater, before being transferred to the municipal finance office, then the municipal department of industry, then the municipal party Organization Department. She then rose to become deputy party chief, district governor, and finally party chief of Xicheng District. Beginning in 2007, Lü headed the Organization Department of the Beijing party organization and became a member of the municipal Party Standing Committee. She was named Deputy Party Secretary of Beijing in 2013, ascending to the third-ranked position in the Beijing party organization, succeeding Ji Lin.
During her term in office, along with Chen Yiqin, she was one of only two female provincial-level zhuanzhi Deputy Party Secretaries in the Chinese Communist Party. She is also president of the Beijing Party School, the Beijing School of Administration, and an alternate member of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. She is considered a "homegrown" Beijing establishment politician, having spent her entire career in the capital.
On November 11, 2015, Lü Xiwen was placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection for "serious violations of regulations". She was the first provincial-ministerial level official being examined from Beijing after the 18th Party Congress in 2012. On January 5, 2016, Lü Xiwen was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party. The party's internal investigation concluded that Lü "violated political rules, trivialized policies and the direction of the party centre, formed factions of her own, resisted investigation, did not honestly report her own activities to the organization, interfered in the personnel decisions of her previous area of oversight, lost control of her staff, violated the Eight-point Regulation, frequented private clubs; interfered with the market economy, interfered with law enforcement; violated lifestyle discipline, lived a life of luxury and pleasure seeking."
On February 20, 2017, Lü was sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes worth 18.78 million yuan by the Intermediate People's Court in Jilin.