China says family cut off funds to get most-wanted graft suspect back
Fugitive Yang Xiuzhu was under pressure from family and Chinese community in the US to surrender to authorities back at home
Family members cut off funds and were lobbied by senior members of the Chinese community in the United States as part of efforts to get China’s most-wanted graft suspect to give herself up, the Communist Party’s corruption watchdog said on Thursday.
Yang Xiuzhu, a former deputy director of Wenzhou’s construction bureau in the booming eastern province of Zhejiang, surrendered to Chinese authorities after spending 13 years in hiding overseas. She returned to China on Wednesday in a major victory for the country’s overseas hunt for fugitive officials.
Giving details of how China was able to persuade Yang to surrender, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said all of her relatives at home and abroad had advised her to come back.
They “even took the initiative to cut off lawyer fees and living expenses, assisting us in the job of persuading her to come back”, it said in a statement on its website.
The heads of the Wenzhou and Zhejiang clan associations in New York and other “patriotic overseas Chinese leaders” fully supported and cooperated in the mission to get Yang back, the commission said.
“They advised and guided Yang Xiuzhu and her relatives, and urged on the US side to repatriate her as soon as possible.”
