‘Naked officials’ demoted for plans to leave China

Some of the most despised officials in China are those who send their wives and children to live overseas, while preparing for their own eventual departure. They are known as luoguan or "naked officials".

As part of the crackdown on corruption, more than 800 officials across Guangdong province, whose spouses and children have emigrated overseas, have been demoted or had “position adjustments”.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party's anti-corruption body, said on its website an inquiry into luoguan had discovered 866 officials, including nine bureau-level cadres and 134 at the department level. The cadres were either forced to retire early, demoted or transferred to nominal posts, the statement said.

The CCDI sent a team of inspectors to Guangdong late last year, and reported in February that “naked” officials were a serious problem.

Family overseas Officials in Guangdong were then asked to report their properties, the employment status of their spouses and children, and records of their movements in and out of the country.

Many senior Communist Party officials have family overseas – President Xi Jinping’s own daughter enrolled at Harvard University in 2010. However, the term “naked official” specifically refers to those who are planning to slip out of the country with illicit graft money.

A report by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, last year estimated about 18,000 senior Communist Party officials and high-level employees of state-owned enterprises had fled China with 800 billion yuan (€94 billion).

While there are no official figures for “naked officials”, last year a Chinese Academy of Governance professor estimated there were 1.2 million.

Late last month, Guangdong province transferred Communist Party officials whose families live abroad to less sensitive posts as part of the anti-corruption campaign.

Fang Xuan, the deputy party chief of provincial capital Guangzhou, became the highest-ranking official forced to prematurely retire because of his “naked official” status. All others, including department heads, had to ask their families to return to China.

Yang Jianwei, vice-director of the Guangdong Communist Party School, said these officials were not necessarily corrupt.“You have moved your families abroad, how could we not think that although you are living in China you are planning to escape?”