BEIJING – In the latest high-profile fallout from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s years-long anti-corruption drive, a former top-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been formally expelled from the ruling party, state media confirmed Tuesday.
Ma Xingrui, 66, once served as a member of the Politburo, the 25-person core decision-making body that sits at the peak of China’s political power. Recent official reports now refer to Ma as a former Politburo member, confirming his removal from the elite group whose current term runs from 2022 to 2027. Ma is the third sitting-term Politburo member to be removed from the body during the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, following two senior military generals who were previously purged.
Political analysts have long characterized Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption initiative as a dual-purpose mechanism: it targets systemic graft within the party while also consolidating political loyalty to Xi among ruling ranks. Ma’s political downfall first came to light in April, when authorities announced he was under investigation for serious violations of party discipline and Chinese national law, but no specific details of the accusations were released at that time.
Tuesday’s official announcements from party investigatory bodies laid out a lengthy list of confirmed violations against Ma. These include improper acceptance of cash and gifts, engagement in both sex-for-power and money-for-power quid pro quo arrangements, and abusing his official position to secure lucrative private contracts and undeserved job promotions for connected associates. Investigators also found that Ma deliberately overlooked violations and alleged criminal activity carried out by close members of his own staff.
Before his ouster, Ma held some of the most powerful regional positions in China’s political system. A trained aerospace engineer who cut his professional teeth in the aerospace industry before transitioning to government service, Ma most recently served as the CCP party chief for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a post he held until 2025. Prior to his appointment in Xinjiang, Ma was the top governor of Guangdong Province, China’s southern manufacturing powerhouse that borders Hong Kong and sits at the core of the country’s export-led economy. In China’s hierarchical political system, regional CCP party chiefs outrank appointed provincial governors, making Ma’s past posts among the most influential regional leadership roles in the country.
In a separate development announced alongside Ma’s expulsion Tuesday, the CCP’s central anti-corruption commission confirmed it has launched an investigation into the head of Shanxi Province’s mine safety regulatory body. The probe comes in the wake of a deadly coal mine explosion in the northern coal-producing province that killed multiple people in May.