China’s anti-corruption tsar is preparing to visit the US as Beijing steps up its drive to extradite corrupt officials who have fled abroad, according to two people familiar with the planned trip.
Wang Qishan heads the ruling Communist party’s graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and has masterminded the unprecedented anti-corruption campaign that has come to define President Xi Jinping’s first two years in power.
Mr Wang is formally ranked sixth on the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest organ, but in his role as Mr Xi’s “hatchet man” he is widely regarded as China’s second most powerful leader.