BEIJING — China's former railways minister Liu Zhijun was given a suspended death sentence Monday that will likely be commuted to life imprisonment for bribery and abuse of power in one of the country's highest-profile corruption cases in years.
Liu's sentence is seen as lenient in a country where the death penalty is meted out even for economic crimes like tax evasion, and likely reflects the Communist Party leadership's desire to not antagonize ruling party factions that might face similar charges.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Liu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court. After two years, such sentences typically are commuted to life in prison if the inmate shows good behavior.
"If they were to sentence Liu Zhijun to death now, that generates expectations in the minds of officials and the people that officials of similar seniority will have to be executed," said Willy Lam, a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The party leadership is reluctant to set up these kinds of expectations because there are so many corrupt officials who might have really sterling, good political connections."
Liu, 60, who oversaw the ministry's high-profile bullet train development, was accused of taking massive bribes and steering lucrative projects to associates.
New Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption a hallmark campaign of his term in office so far. Though Liu was arrested and investigated before Xi came to power, the public is still likely to view his sentence as undermining Xi's pledge to treat both high- and low-level corrupt officials with equal severity.
It also feeds public perception of a judicial system that protects those with powerful political connections while severely punishing ordinary people.
"The public reaction is going to be one of strong resentment, because some cases are very clear, when ordinary people commit minor economic crimes, they get heavy sentences," said Zhang Ming, a China politics expert at Renmin University in Beijing. "When you compare this to those cases, you can see that justice is unfair."