Chinese authorities have placed at least six China Mobile executives under investigation in the past month, the latest wave in a sweeping purge of the state-owned telecom system.
Analysts recently told The Epoch Times that the move is driven less by anti-corruption goals than by a factional fight over control of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) surveillance apparatus.
Since the start of 2025, at least 16 telecom executives have been brought down, according to a May 11 report by Southern Metropolis Daily, a Chinese state-run outlet. Those investigated include group-level deputy general managers and the heads of provincial branches. The anti-graft campaign has touched all three major carriers—China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom—and has reached from corporate headquarters down to municipal subsidiaries.
The pace has accelerated in recent weeks.
On May 11, the CCP's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection—the country's top anti-graft watchdog—announced that Gao Zhixing, former deputy general manager of China Mobile's Guangdong branch, was under investigation for "serious violations of discipline and law"—the standard formula Beijing uses when it opens a corruption case.
On the same day, Cao Jianghong, former general manager of the infrastructure engineering office at China Mobile Sichuan, was also placed under investigation.
The next day, the discipline inspection commission in Heze, a city in Shandong Province, announced on its WeChat account that two more China Mobile officials at the Heze branch—Liu Lujun, former vice chairman of the labor union, and Li Guojie, former deputy manager of the government and enterprise customer center—were being investigated for alleged violations of discipline and law.
Fang Li, former Party secretary and chairman of China Mobile (Suzhou) Software Technology Co., is also among those caught up in the campaign.
Behind the Purge
Shen Ming-shih, a research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times that the telecom system has long been among the CCP's most politically valuable assets.He said China Mobile and its sister carriers were built up during the era of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin—a period when, he said, well-connected officials could "silently make a fortune" through transfers of state-owned assets and the release of military and government resources to favored companies.
"It may be a nationwide parent company, but it also has branches in every province, forming a massive interest group," Shen said. Over time, he added, the telecom giants built a dense network linking business executives to political patrons at the top of the Party.
The sector's political identity has long been tied to Jiang Mianheng, Jiang Zemin's eldest son, who was so influential in the industry that he was nicknamed the "King of China's Telecommunications."
The telecom system has historically been viewed as a stronghold of the so-called Jiang faction—the loose network of officials and business figures who rose under Jiang and have come under repeated pressure during current leader Xi Jinping's years in power.
"The basic reality of today's CCP political landscape is that Xi Jinping's faction and anti-Xi forces are locked in a struggle over key power centers," Tang said.
Many officials now seen as Xi loyalists originally rose under Jiang and switched allegiances only as Xi consolidated power, Tang noted, adding that as the political winds shift again, those same officials could find themselves on the wrong side.
"This large-scale cleanup of the telecom system looks more like anti-Xi factions moving against officials associated with Xi," he said.
Tang argued that since the 19th National Congress in 2017, when Xi established himself as the CCP's unquestioned leader, his policies have fueled growing resentment among Party elites.
"Xi Jinping has become the common enemy of many factions within the CCP leadership," Tang said.
Both analysts said telecom matters so much in these fights because the system controls far more than phone lines. China's carriers run the infrastructure that handles communications, user data, and the surveillance feeds Beijing relies on to monitor its citizens.
"Whoever controls the telecom system controls surveillance and information about nearly all major national resources," Tang said. "In high-level factional struggles, this is a system no one can afford to ignore."
Shen said the telecom sector's strategic value to the CCP means whoever controls it holds significant political leverage. He added that he sees no sign the purge will ease soon and that the leadership may push forward, even at the cost of disrupting the companies themselves.