53-year old Yang Weize, Party Secretary of Nanjing has been placed under investigation by the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC). This was disclosed by the CDIC on its website on January 4, 2015. According to Caixin magazine, a Nanjing official who declined to be named is reported to have said the CDIC received a tip-off from a retired Jiangsu official, who alleged wrongdoing by Yang Weize during his tenures in the city governments of Suzhou and Wuxi from late 2000 to 2011. The nature of the allegations is unclear. Yang Weize was last seen in public on January 1 at a marathon sponsored by the Nanjing government. Sources close to Yang Weize said many people thought of him as incorruptible because a string of former colleagues had been investigated for graft but none seemed to have implicated him.
Yang is the sixth party chief of a provincial capital and the eighth alternate member of the party's Central Committee to be probed by graft fighters since party General Secretary Xi Jinping launched a campaign against graft shortly after taking power in late 2012. A native of Jiangsu, he secialised in civil aviation engineering. At age of 36, he was the youngest department head in the province. In December 2000, Yang Weize was transferred to Suzhou to become its acting mayor and deputy general secretary of its party committee. He became the party boss of the Wuxi government in November 2004, and two years later joined the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu party committee. He was appointed Nanjing's party chief in March 2011. During his stint in Wuxi, Yang Weize frequently visited the hometown of former PBSC member Zhou Yongkang, who is presently under investigation and faces trial.
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