University officials leave Chinese corporate boards

The Wall Street Journal 09 January 2016

An unusual number of independent directors resigned from Chinese public company boards in the first three weeks of December, according to China Economic Weekly, a local publication. Fuelling that rise: more than 270 directors who are deans or professors of Chinese universities, reports The Wall Street Journal.

A spot check by China Real Time showed a large number of such university types are indeed dropping out. During the week of 7 December, directors with university backgrounds resigned from more than 80 public companies, citing personal reasons or a directive from the Chinese Communist Party.

That directive is the latest effort in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-year-old anti-corruption campaign. China’s Ministry of Education in November asked universities to abide by the same directive that forbids party and government officials to get a second pay cheque. According to this reasoning, universities are now serving as a corruption conduit between the business world and politics.
Full report on The Wall Street Journal site

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