Ma Xingrui

Ma Xingrui, whose ancestral home is Yuncheng in Heze, Shandong, was born in October 1959 in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang. He worked for many years in the aerospace industry, was transferred from the aerospace system to a national ministry in 2013, and in the same year began his career in local politics. In November 2013, Ma Xingrui went south to become deputy party secretary of Guangdong Province and secretary of its political and legal affairs commission; in March 2015 he instead concurrently became party secretary of Shenzhen, the first time Shenzhen’s “number one” was a member of the Central Committee. He led Shenzhen for nearly two years, became acting governor of Guangdong at the end of 2016, and was promoted to governor in January 2017, reaching full provincial rank at the age of 57. In December 2021, Ma Xingrui, then 62, left Guangdong and went north to become party secretary of Xinjiang. Before he was placed under investigation, his posts were member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group.

On April 3, 2026, the authorities announced Ma Xingrui’s downfall. According to a Xinhua report released on July 14, 2026, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a meeting on June 30 that reviewed and approved the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s “Report on the Results of the Investigation into Ma Xingrui’s Problems and Proposed Handling”. The meeting decided to expel Ma Xingrui from the party (to be ratified when a plenary session of the Central Committee is convened), to have the National Supervisory Commission dismiss him from public office, to terminate his status as a delegate to the 20th Party Congress, to confiscate his gains from violations of discipline and law, and to transfer his suspected criminal offences to the procuratorate for review and prosecution. The announcement said that Ma Xingrui had seriously violated party discipline, constituting official misconduct and suspected bribery; on economic issues there were two main points: first, he allowed relatives to use the influence of his position to seek huge benefits, engaging in family-style corruption; second, he turned public power into a tool for seeking private gain, using his position to secure benefits for others in areas such as business operations, contracting for projects and promotions, and, by himself or together with relatives and persons with whom he had special relationships, illegally accepted huge sums of money and property.

According to Caixin, around May 2026, shortly after Ma Xingrui’s downfall, Hu Donghai, former party secretary and chairman of CITIC Real Estate Co., Ltd., the property development platform of the central state-owned enterprise CITIC Group, was taken away by the relevant authorities in the south. Hu Donghai had worked in the “CITIC system” property business for many years and had already retired when the case broke; after CITIC Group established CITIC Real Estate in September 2013, he served as the company’s party secretary and chairman for many years. Caixin reported that Hu Donghai was investigated because he used CITIC Real Estate’s banner as a central state-owned enterprise to seek out property projects and then resell them, with the huge profits divided between him and a mysterious person, and the sums involved often exceeding a billion yuan. The timeline of Hu Donghai’s case overlaps with the period of Ma Xingrui’s tenure in Guangdong; behind it stood Wang Zhanjiang, a property developer in Shenzhen’s old-district redevelopment sector, and his “Huasheng system”; the case brought to light a hidden chain of political-business dealings in which the shadow of Ma Xingrui’s relatives could be seen, and this is said to have been the most important lead in substantiating Ma Xingrui’s economic problems.

According to Caixin, Wang Zhanjiang, now 59, began entering the property industry around 2001, first establishing Jilin City Dajiang Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. in Jilin, and around 2016 founding Shenzhen Huasheng Investment Co., Ltd.; over the following three or four years, he set up companies through layer upon layer of nested outward investments, expanding into Shenzhen, Huizhou, Zhuhai and elsewhere, and at its peak the “Huasheng system” had more than 40 affiliated companies. A person from the urban renewal department of a Shenzhen property developer told Caixin that as soon as the “Huasheng system” entered Shenzhen, it acquired dozens of old-district redevelopment projects on a large scale, and that its rapid “expansion of territory” was mainly due to its use of CITIC Real Estate’s name. In September 2016, the “Huasheng system” and CITIC Real Estate jointly established Shenzhen Xinghuo Xinteng Real Estate Co., Ltd., with the “Huasheng system” holding a combined 60% and CITIC Real Estate holding 40%; in April 2017, Hu Donghai replaced Wang Jianyu as chairman of the company. From September 2016 to July 2020, the company operated under the name CITIC Real Estate (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and presented itself as a member company of CITIC Group. In July 2024, CITIC Real Estate listed its 40% stake for transfer at a reserve price of only 1 yuan, and as of the time of the report no interested buyer had been found; at the end of December 2025, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court ruled to declare Huasheng Investment bankrupt.

According to Caixin, Wang Zhanjiang set up Shenzhen Qianhai Zhongsheng Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) in October 2017, which was deregistered in August 2021; during its existence, its registered address was the same as that of Shenzhen Qianhai Zhifu Financial Holding Group, whose chairman is Ma Shaofu; Ma Shaofu had on several occasions, together with Ma Xingquan, chairman of Beijing Zhanying Xingye Information Technology Co., Ltd., donated supplies and money to Shuangyashan in Heilongjiang, and Ma Xingquan is Ma Xingrui’s younger brother. Zhuhai Hansheng Technology Co., Ltd., the creditor that applied to the court for the bankruptcy liquidation of Huasheng Investment, has as its second-largest shareholder a wholly owned subsidiary of Zhuhai Aviation City, a Zhuhai state-owned enterprise. After late March 2026, a number of Zhuhai officials “fell,” including Guo Yonghang, vice chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CPPCC and former party secretary of Zhuhai; Guo Yonghang had served as secretary-general of the Shenzhen municipal party committee after Ma Xingrui concurrently became Shenzhen’s “number one.”