China probes official of state-owned insurance firm for graft

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is investigating an executive at the China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation for graft, the ruling Communist Party's corruption watchdog said on Sunday, making him the latest target of a widening corruption crackdown.

Dai Chunning, a vice president at the company, which is also called Sinosure, is "suspected of serious discipline violations", the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said on its website.

It gave no further details in a brief statement but in China the term discipline violations generally denotes corruption. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

China's President Xi Jinping has said endemic corruption threatens the party's very survival and has vowed to go after high-flying "tigers" as well as lowly "flies".

Authorities have already announced the investigation or arrest of a handful of senior officials, among them former officials of oil giant PetroChina in what appears to be the biggest graft probe into a state-run firm in years.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)