Most on-the-run Chinese are top officials, executives

Corrupt officials, fraudulent financiers and embezzling executives accounted for the vast majority of the public figures who fled China with their ill-gotten gains from 1992-2012.

According to a report by Beijing News, of the 54 people named in 50 publicly reported cases, 26 were government employees, of which just two were low-level civil servants. Several were government leaders, while others held key positions in the public security, transport and energy sectors.

Among the provincial and ministerial-level officials named in the report were Lan Fu, former deputy mayor of Xiamen; Lu Wanli, former head of the Transport Department of Guizhou Province; and Yang Wanzhong, ex-director of Shanghai Nuclear Power Office.

A total of 10 officials were engaged in corruption cases involving more than 1 billion yuan (US$162.7 million), while the sums involved in cases from the financial sector and large state-owned enterprises were even larger, the report said.

In 2001, three former governors of Bank of China's Kaiping Branch in Guangdong Province — Xu Chaofan, Yu Zhendong and Xu Guojun — simultaneously fled to the United States after embezzling a combined US$482 million.

In 2003, Yang Xiuzhu, the former deputy mayor in charge of urban construction in Zhejiang Province's Wenzhou, fled with an alleged 253.2 billion yuan.

In total, financial institutions accounted for 15 of the people who fled, while 13 others worked in state-owned enterprises, all of them in executive-level positions, the report said.

Of all the runaways, the highest ranking was Gao Yan, a former secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, who fled while employed as general manager of the State Electric Power Corp. The amount of money he embezzled has never been revealed.

The report said that the US was the most popular destination for the fleeing officials, followed by Canada, Australia and EU member countries.

Huang Feng, a law expert from Beijing Normal University, said that many officials chose their destination countries not just for the quality of life they offer but because their governments did not have repatriation agreements with China.

Beijing has taken great steps to make it more difficult for officials and executives to flee China, including signing extradition treaties with 36 countries and judicial assistance treaties with the US, Canada and 47 other nations.