Anti-corruption unit probes China's top insurance regulator
China's top insurance regulator, Xiang Junbo, is being investigated by the Chinese Communist Party's anti-corruption investigation agency after being accused of “severe violations of discipline". Xiang has overseen the rapid expansion of China's insurance industry, which has generated a wave of blockbuster deals globally, most notably in the property and financial sectors. However, Chinese regulators have been looking to curb what are now more widely seen as the risky practises in the industry.
SHANGHAI — China’s anti-corruption investigators are targeting the country’s top insurance regulator, throwing doubt over an industry that has been behind a wave of blockbuster global deals but has raised concerns about financial risk in the world’s second-largest economy.

The Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption investigation agency said Sunday afternoon that the regulator, Xiang Junbo, had been placed under investigation for “severe violations of discipline.” In China, that language is commonly used in reference to a corruption inquiry.

Mr. Xiang oversaw an industry that has gone from a cash-rich but sleepy backwater to a major player on the global deal-making scene in recent years. Chinese insurers have bought up a large number of properties, including big developments, European financial institutions and the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Since last year, Chinese regulators have moved to curtail what have been widely seen as some of the insurance industry’s riskier practices.

Mr. Xiang himself had become a name to be noticed on Wall Street. In 2012, Mr. Xiang met with Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and asked him to hire a young woman who he said was the daughter of a close friend. The American authorities later opened a bribery inquiry into whether the bank hired children of powerful Chinese officials to help it win lucrative business there.