Ling Jihua

Ling Jihua}} (born 22 October 1956) is a former Chinese politician and one of the principal political advisers of former leader Hu Jintao. Ling was best known for his tenure as director of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party between 2007 and 2012. Ling was charged with corruption, bribery, and other misconduct and was sentenced to life imprisonment as part of a larger anti-corruption campaign carried out by Xi Jinping.

Ling began his career as a functionary in regional branches of the Communist Youth League in his native Shanxi Province. His Youth League involvement propelled him to the national-level organization in 1979. At the Youth League Ling worked in its propaganda department and edited its flagship newspaper. Closely following the footsteps of his patron Hu Jintao, Ling was promoted to a leadership position in the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party in 1999, and became an important member of the State Commission for Public Sector Reform.

Ling rose to become the Director of the General Office, an organ that handles day-to-day logistics and bureaucratic functions of the Communist Party, in 2007, when Hu was the party's General Secretary (i.e., paramount leader). He was initially seen as a promising candidate for promotion to the top leadership at the 18th Party Congress in 2012. However, his political fortunes abruptly took a turn when his 23-year-old son was killed while driving a Ferrari in 2012, an event that caused embarrassment for the party elite. Ling was then politically sidelined.

In December 2014, Ling was placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (party's anti-graft agency) and removed from office. He was expelled from the Communist Party and tried on charges of corruption, illegal possession of state secrets, and abuse of power, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2016. Provided by Wikipedia