JINAN, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Bi Jingquan, former national political advisor and deputy chief of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of accepting bribes, according to a court ruling.
Bi was also fined 5 million yuan (about 739,000 U.S. dollars) by the Intermediate People's Court of Jinan in east China's Shandong Province. All illicit gains and related proceeds will be recovered and turned over to the state treasury, the court said.
Bi was a member of the Standing Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee. He had also served as chief of the country's food and drug regulatory agency.
The court found that between 1995 and 2025, Bi took advantage of his various positions to assist others in areas including business operations, administrative approvals and project settlement and, in return, accepted money and valuables worth more than 57.42 million yuan.
The court ruled that Bi's conduct constituted the crime of accepting bribes, with the amounts involved deemed "especially huge" under Chinese law.
However, Bi received a lenient sentence because he truthfully confessed to his crimes and disclosed additional bribery facts previously unknown to investigators, while some of the bribery offenses were attempted rather than completed. He had also pleaded guilty, expressed remorse and actively returned illicit gains, with all illegal proceeds already recovered, the ruling noted.
A public trial of this case was held on June 24.
Bi was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and dismissed from public office in December last year. ■
