A DEPOSED leader of one of China’s most populous provinces chose not to contest charges of bribery and abuse of power when his trial opened Thursday. He is the latest senior official linked to retired security chief Zhou Yongkang to be tried in a sweeping anti-graft campaign.

    President Xi Jinping’s two-year crackdown has felled at least a dozen former associates and proteges of Zhou, the once-powerful domestic security chief and member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and the most senior person to have been charged with corruption.

    Li Chuncheng, former deputy Communist Party chief of southwestern Sichuan Province, was charged last year.

    For many years, he oversaw the development of Sichuan Province’s prosperous capital, Chengdu, until the Party began investigating him for graft in late 2012.

    Flanked by two policemen, Li appeared in court in Xianning, in the central province of Hubei, wearing a plain, black jacket and wire-rimmed glasses, photos on the court’s official microblog showed.

    Prosecutors said that between 1999 and 2012, Li abused his power to give others priority in land development and project contracts, and also illegally accepted money and goods directly or through his wife, which constitutes the crime of accepting bribes.

    Li began working in Sichuan in 1998, rising up through the ranks.

    Zhou was charged with bribery, abuse of power and intentional disclosure of State secrets earlier this month. He will be tried in Tianjin, a city near Beijing, but a date has not been set.

    Last week, Jiang Jiemin, the former head of CNPC, China’s top energy group, and a close associate of Zhou, admitted his guilt and asked for leniency at his corruption trial.

    Since taking power in 2013, Xi has launched a sweeping crackdown on corruption, warning that corruption is a threat to the Party’s survival.

    Scores of senior figures in the Party, the military and State-owned enterprises have been felled in the crackdown.(SD-Agencies)