Chu Jian, a vice-president at top-ranked Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling public funds.
The case is currently under investigation by the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Prosecutors Office and no further details were officially revealed. Chu was appointed vice-president of Zhejang University in Feb. 2005 where he was put in charge of personnel, retirees and university-affiliated companies.
According to a source, Chu’s legal issues may have stemmed from his involvement in Supcon, a company that manufactures products for use in automation and information technology, which he heads. An engineer by training, Chu has achieved a broad range of academic, professional and political accomplishments.
In 1978, at the age of 15, Chu tested into Zhejiang University’s department of chemical engineering and by 1986 became the first Zhejiang University master’s degree student to graduate from the school’s joint program with Kyoto University. In 1992, at the age of 29, Chu was appointed deputy director of the National Engineering Research Center for Industrial Automation. The following year he became a professor at Zhejiang University.
Chu was a co-founder of Highne, an industrial automation company that was wholly owned by the university. When Highne applied to be listed on the stock market, one of its divisions spun off to become Supcon, to which Chu was appointed as CEO. Chu also served as a deputy to the National People’s Congress from 2003 to 2008.
Chu is not the only top university official who has been the subject of an investigation. Earlier in this month, Cai Rongsheng, the director of Renmin University’s admissions office, was arrested on charges that he had accepted bribes of over 100 million yuan.