China probes high-ranking sports official for corruption

A deputy head of China's sports administration has been put under investigation, the ruling Communist Party's anti-corruption agency said, the highest-ranking official to fall in the notoriously graft-prone sector.
Xiao Tian, deputy director of the General Administration of Sport (GAS) and a vice chairman of China's national Olympic committee, is being probed for suspected "serious violation of disciplines and laws" -- an often-used euphemism for corruption, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement.
Formerly a successful fencer, the statement yesterday said Xiao had been in his current position since 2005.
Xiao's wife Tian Hua, who like him is an official at the administration, was also being investigated, the state-run China News Service said today.

Xiao is the most senior sport official snared so far in President Xi Jinping's much-publicised drive against corruption that vows to target both high-level "tigers" and low-ranking "flies".
Earlier this month, a court jailed China's former security chief Zhou Yongkang for life on corruption charges, the highest-ranking ex-official to be sentenced in decades.
Today, the CCDI announced that Yue Dake, a deputy head of the Tibet regional legislature, was also being investigated.
Yue, born in the central province of Jiangxi, worked in China's security apparatus for 33 years until 2013, according to his biography on the website of the People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece.