Jiang Weiping (Chinese: 姜维平 ; born c. 1955) is a veteran mainland Chinese journalist known internationally for his arrest by the Communist Party of China in 2001.
In 1999, he began publishing a series of articles about the Communist Party corruption in the Hong Kong magazine Frontline (Chinese: 前哨; pinyin: Qian shao), including a report on Bo Xilai. He was arrested in December 2000 and sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of revealing state secrets, but was granted early release in 2006. After a period of house arrest, he emigrated to Canada in 2009.
Career in China
Jiang is a graduate of the University of Liaoning, where he studied history. In the 1980s, he became a reporter for Xinhua News Agency. In 1984, he wrote his first story about official Bo Xilai, who was then a CCP official in a small town. In the early 1990s, Jiang became the Northeastern China bureau chief of the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper in Hong Kong.
In mid-1999, Jiang also published a series of eight reports in Front Line, a Hong Kong magazine, alleging corruption by various Chinese officials. Writing under the pen name “Wen Qingtian”, Jiang stated that while mayor of Dalian, Bo Xilai had covered up corruption by his wife Gu Kailai, whose law firm had handled a number of government development and real estate deals. Another article, titled “Former Daqing Mayor Qian Dihua Arrested: Richest Man in the Area Who Kept 29 Mistresses”, stated that a mayor had spent state money on cars and apartments for mistresses, while a third reported that Ma Xiangdong, deputy mayor of Shenyang, had lost US$3 million of state money while gambling in Macau. Ma was executed in 2001 for the loss.
| Jiang Weiping | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1955 |
| Residence | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Awards | CPJ International Press Freedom Award (2001) |
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