A Marxist theoretician has been removed as head of an important Communist Party research institute over a sex scandal as China’s new leadership moves to end the latest revelation of high-level sleaze.
The removal of Yi Junqing as director of the Central Compilation and Translation
Bureau, which was announced Thursday, has been anticipated for weeks since the appearance online of a salacious account supposedly written by a female post-doctoral fellow at the bureau who was a former lover of Yi.
The 210-page document — which was a brief Internet sensation before it was scrubbed off the web — chronicled the illicit relationship between Yi and Chang Yan, from December 2011 to November 2012.
Chang said she bribed Yi with tens of thousands of yuan in cash and slept with him to get her fellowship turned into a permanent position only to discover he was not going to help and that he had other lovers.
Chang later said the writing was fictional, but Chinese netizens believed it was real. Yang Jinhai, the bureau’s general secretary, confirmed Chang’s stint at the bureau and said Chang has returned to Linfen, Shanxi province, for rest.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday that Yi was fired for “lifestyle issues” — often a euphemism for corruption and mistresses.