Beijing/Tianjin, December 9, 2025 – Chinese authorities executed Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of China Huarong International Holdings Limited (CHIH), on Tuesday morning in Tianjin. The execution marks the second time in recent years that a senior executive from the once-powerful state-owned financial conglomerate has been put to death for corruption, highlighting the unrelenting intensity of President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-graft campaign.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that Bai, aged 56, was allowed a final meeting with close family members shortly before the sentence was carried out at a detention facility under the jurisdiction of the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court. Consistent with standard practice in China, the exact method of execution was not disclosed.
Bai Tianhui was convicted of accepting bribes totaling more than 1.1 billion yuan (approximately US$156 million) between 2014 and 2018 while serving as general manager, and later as managing director and deputy general manager, of CHIH, the Hong Kong-based offshore investment arm of China Huarong Asset Management Co. In exchange for the bribes — delivered in cash, property, luxury goods, and other assets — Bai allegedly provided favourable treatment to certain companies in project financing, equity investments, and acquisitions.
China Huarong Asset Management, one of the country’s four major “bad bank” institutions established in 1999 to absorb non-performing loans from state-owned banks, grew into a financial giant managing trillions of yuan in distressed assets. Its rapid expansion during the 2010s, however, was accompanied by widespread corruption at the highest levels.
Bai’s death sentence, handed down in May 2024 by the Tianjin court, carried no two-year reprieve — an unusual decision that signalled the extraordinary severity with which authorities viewed his crimes. After Bai appealed, the Tianjin Higher People’s Court upheld the verdict in February 2025. The Supreme People’s Court completed its mandatory final review and approved the execution, stating that the amount of bribes was “exceptionally huge,” the circumstances “exceptionally serious,” and the damage to state and public interests “particularly grave.”
The execution of Bai Tianhui is only the latest chapter in the dramatic downfall of China Huarong. In January 2021, the company’s former chairman, Lai Xiaomin, was executed after being found guilty of soliciting or accepting bribes worth nearly 1.8 billion yuan — at the time the largest single corruption case of its kind in Communist Party history. Lai’s case exposed a lavish lifestyle that included dozens of mistresses, hundreds of properties, and tonnes of cash hidden in a Beijing apartment dubbed the “supermarket of corruption.” The scandal triggered a government-led bailout and restructuring of Huarong, which was eventually absorbed into the CITIC Group and renamed China CITIC Financial Asset Management in 2024.
Since Xi Jinping launched his anti-corruption campaign shortly after taking power in late 2012, the financial sector has been one of the hardest-hit areas. More than 100 senior finance officials were investigated in 2023 alone, though the pace moderated slightly in 2024 and 2025. Notable recent cases include:
- Li Xiaopeng, former chairman of China Everbright Group, sentenced in March 2025 to 15 years in prison for accepting 60 million yuan in bribes.
- Liu Liange, former chairman of Bank of China, handed a suspended death sentence (two-year reprieve) in November 2024 for taking 121 million yuan in illicit payments.
- Yi Huiman, the former head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, placed under investigation in September 2025 for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law” — the standard euphemism for corruption.
Supporters of the campaign argue that it has been essential for restoring discipline, reducing wasteful extravagance among officials, and improving governance in strategic sectors. Critics, both inside and outside China, contend that the drive has also served as a political tool to sideline potential rivals and consolidate Xi Jinping’s personal authority, especially ahead of future leadership transitions.
China continues to classify all death-penalty statistics as state secrets, but rights groups and researchers estimate that the country carries out between one thousand and several thousand executions each year — far more than the rest of the world combined. In recent years an increasing proportion of those executions have been for non-violent economic crimes, particularly large-scale corruption and financial fraud.
Bai Tianhui’s execution has drawn widespread attention on Chinese social media, where state media outlets emphasised the inevitability of justice, while international observers noted the rarity and severity of applying the death penalty without reprieve in white-collar cases.
As President Xi enters the later stages of his third term, there is no indication that the anti-corruption campaign will slow down. With the next Party Congress scheduled for 2027, analysts expect continued high-profile investigations in finance, technology, energy, and other strategic industries. For many in China’s elite circles, Bai Tianhui’s fate serves as a chilling reminder: in Xi’s China, corruption on a grand scale can still cost not only wealth and freedom, but life itself.
