Chinese citizen collected $325 million in bribes over 30 years — and confessed. But was still sentenced to death

State media added that the court concluded that Yang “colluded with others to fraudulently obtain government funds,” distributed bribes himself to “state functionaries to seek improper benefits,” misused state funds and “unlawfully arranged land demolition and development projects, which resulted in serious social repercussions.”

As well, they found Yang guilty of “causing economic losses to the state” by facilitating “illegally refunded land transfer fees.”

Despite the 69-year-old having pleaded guilty and “expressed remorse,” along with reportedly providing information on other criminal activity, the court wasn’t swayed toward a lighter sentence, even as such actions have led to life sentence commutations in the past.

“His offenses were of an extremely serious nature, had an exceptionally egregious social impact, caused exceptionally heavy losses to the interests of the state and the people, and were extremely grave,” says the court ruling, reported by state media. “He should therefore be sentenced to death in accordance with the law.”

Why accepting bribes can result in the death penalty in China

Yang’s prosecution is believed to be part of ​Chinese President Xi Jinping’s widespread anti-corruption campaign, which some have argued is a veiled means of eliminating Xi’s political rivals.

“Xi was sincere when he said the campaign was necessary to improve governance, and the campaign has undoubtedly purged many genuinely corrupt officials,” the non-profit Hudson Institute research organization wrote of the anti-corruption push in 2023. “But its parallel purpose has always been to purge Xi’s political rivals and consolidate his grip on power.”

That said, there’s no direct evidence that Yang was a political enemy of Xi. Instead, his case falls more in line with other government officials who’ve faced the death penalty for corruption in recent years, including former state senior economist Lai Xiaomin, sentenced to death in 2021 after being found guilty of taking nearly 2 billion yuan (around $294 million) worth of bribes.

At the time, Human Rights Watch said handing down a death penalty for bribes “is outrageous and unacceptable and clearly violates China’s commitments to respect international human rights standards.”

Li Jianping, a politician in Inner Mongolia, faced the death penalty in 2024 after being convicted of accepting 3 billion yuan (around $442 million). A third politician, Bai Tianhui, was sentenced to death in 2025 for accepting 1.1 billion yuan (around $156 million) in bribes.

In Bai’s case, the South China Morning Post reported that “China is likely to see the death penalty handed down to more corrupt officials as Xi puts sectors that have been extremely lucrative in the cross hairs of anti-corruption investigators, including finance and mining.”

As well, Liu Changsong, an attorney who founded the Beijing Mugong Law Firm, told the outlet that, while offenses that total more than 1 billion yuan could serve as a rough demarcation line for the death penalty, he believed that “if the harm caused is extremely terrible, even if the bribe amount is not much, or just over the limit, the death penalty may be imposed.”