China has executed former China Huarong International Holdings general manager Bai Tianhui for taking massive bribes amounting to 1.1 billion yuan (about $156 million), state broadcaster CCTV announced on Tuesday. Bai’s case marks one of the most severe punishments handed down in China’s ongoing anti-corruption drive, which has increasingly targeted officials in the country’s financial sector.
According to CCTV, Bai’s crimes caused “particularly serious losses to the interests of the state and the people” and had an extremely harmful social impact. Investigators found that between 2014 and 2018, he abused his senior roles at Huarong’s offshore financing operations in Hong Kong to illegally solicit money and assets. His appeal against the death sentence—originally handed down by a Tianjin court in May 2024—was rejected by a higher court in February, and the ruling was subsequently upheld by China’s Supreme People’s Court, clearing the way for the execution.
China Huarong, one of the country’s largest state-created bad-debt managers, was established to handle toxic loans from major banks. Bai’s conviction follows a string of high-profile corruption cases linked to the company. In 2021, China executed Lai Xiaomin, the former Huarong chairman, after he was convicted of receiving or seeking bribes totalling 1.79 billion yuan. The company itself underwent restructuring after a government-led bailout and was renamed China CITIC Financial Asset Management in 2024.
Bai’s execution underscores the Chinese government’s determination to tighten discipline across its sprawling financial system, where several executives, regulators, and fund managers have been investigated or punished in recent years. Authorities have framed these cases as essential to protecting national economic stability and restoring public confidence in the financial industry.
