China’s Ex-Chief of Food and Drug Watchdog Stripped of Political Advisory Post Amid Anti-Corruption Purge

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Jun 26, 2025 - 10:05 Updated: Jun 26, 2025 - 09:51
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China’s Ex-Chief of Food and Drug Watchdog Stripped of Political Advisory Post Amid Anti-Corruption Purge

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China expelled Bi Jingquan, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, from its top political advisory body on June 25, amid an anti-corruption purge that continues to zero in on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

Bi was removed from his positions as a member of the standing committee and deputy director of the Economic Affairs Committee at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), according to a statement published on the CPPCC’s website.

The decision was endorsed on June 25 at the close of a CPPCC standing committee meeting, it said.

The statement didn’t give the reason for Bi’s removal. The CPPCC is the nation’s top political advisory body, composed of influential figures from various sectors across society to enhance the influence of the CCP.

The CPPCC’s action came less than a month after Beijing unveiled that Bi was under investigation for suspected “serious violations of law and discipline.”

China’s top anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, announced the probe in a one-line statement published on its website in May, without offering any details about the suspected wrongdoings. For the CCP, serious violations of law and discipline often refer to corruption and abuses of power, but the phrase could also indicate other political misconduct.

The announcement also came at a time when a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign roiled the CCP’s top brass and armed forces, raising questions about the Party’s ability to wage a war and the overall stability of leadership.

Bi, 69, was appointed as the Party secretary and director of the State Food and Drug Administration in 2015. Following a major reorganization of state ministries and agencies in 2018, he became the first Party chief of the then-newly established State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration.

In less than a year, the CCP demanded that Bi resign as Beijing sought to contain public outrage over revelations that a major Chinese vaccine maker had given faulty vaccines to hundreds of thousands of children.

In 2020, China announced that Bi had joined the CPPCC and served as a deputy director of its committee for economic affairs.

Bi holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from China’s elite Peking University. He took up several senior posts at the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, China’s central planning agency, in early 2000 and served as deputy secretary-general of the State Council from 2008 to 2015.

Bi was the fifth minister-level official to be subjected to removal this year, according to Chinese media’s calculation of official announcements.

The anti-graft campaign, launched by Chinese leader Xi Jinping more than a decade ago, has led to the removal of Xi’s once powerful rivals and centralized power around the Party.
The recent campaign, however, has turned toward Xi’s trusted associates. Just weeks before Bi’s ouster, the defense ministry’s website indicated that Adm. Miao Hua was expelled from the country’s top military leadership body. Miao, who oversaw the military’s political loyalty as an ally of Xi, was abruptly suspended under investigation for alleged corruption in November 2024.
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