China investigates Tianjin vice mayor for corruption

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is investigating the vice mayor of the city of Tianjin, the anti-graft watchdog agency said on Monday, the latest senior official to be implicated in a crackdown on corruption.

Yin Hailin, 56, a long-time city planning official who became deputy mayor in 2012, is being investigated for "serious violations of discipline", the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on its website.

It did not elaborate.

President Xi Jinping has made rooting out corruption a cornerstone of his administration. He has warned that the problem was so severe it threatened the survival of the ruling Communist Party.

The party's anti-graft body has brought to book dozens of senior officials in the crackdown, including many of Xi's top political opponents.

Several other Tianjin officials have been taken down in the campaign, including Wu Changshun, a former public security boss there.

Yang Dongliang, the former work safety agency chief who was a vice mayor in Tianjin before Yin, was investigated for corruption days after big explosions at a chemicals warehouse in the northern port city killed about 170 people in August 2015.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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