Xu Yongyue

In 1980, Zhu Jiamu moved to the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, becoming the secretary of hardline Party Elder and vice chairman of the CCP Central Committee Chen Yun. In 1983, Chen sought an additional secretary, and Zhu recommended Xu Yongyue. In 1985, Xu took over Zhu's position as Chen Yun's 'private secretary', a close confidant also known as a mishu.[4] Sinologist Alexander Gabuev argued in Kommersant that despite his prominent family connections, Xu owed his career rise to this 11-year relationship with Chen.[6]

In 1987, Xu was promoted to deputy secretary-general of the Central Advisory Committee, becoming trusted among senior communist party officials. In 2015, Hong Kong pro-democracy political party "The Frontier" revealed that on the eve of 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when Jiang Zemin was transferred to Beijing before becoming general secretary, Xu was the person who greeted Jiang at the airport. After Jiang became general secretary, he "reused and strongly recommended" Xu.[2]

In 1992, Xu became the head of the Political and Legal Committee of the CCP in Hebei Province. When Chen Yun died in 1994, Xu became Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Hebei, serving until his promotion in March 1998.

In 1994, police officers in the Hebei suburb of Shijiazhuang found a highly decomposed female corpse in a cornfield between Shijiazhuang Hydraulic Parts Factory and Kongzhai Village. Near the corpse police found a bicycle, a dress and underwear. After on-the-spot investigation, the police determined that this was a road rape and murder case. 20 year old Nie Shubin was one of the first bicyclists to pass by the area after police discovered the scene. He was arrested on the spot.[7]

In an extremely short surprise trial characteristic of the "Strike Hard" campaigns of the era, Nie was charged on April 20, 1995, arraigned on the 22nd, convicted on the 25th, issued a death warrant on the 26th, and executed by firing squad on the 27th.[8][9] On the 28th, Nie's father went to the detention center to deliver daily necessities for his son as usual, when the staff told him, "don't come again, your son was executed yesterday."[7]

At the time, an official in the Hebei procuratorate raised an objection, believing that beyond the (likely forced) confession, there was no other evidence of Nie's guilt, and demanded that the sentence be changed. Reportedly it was Xu Yongyue as secretary of the Hebei Political and Legal Committee, who ordered security officials "to kill, and to kill quickly."[9][7]

In 2005, convicted murderer Wang Shujin confessed to the "1994 rape and murder case in a cornfield in the western suburbs of Shijiazhuang", and a team of investigators from the Hebei Province High People's Court began to review Nie's conviction. Xu Yongyue, by then Minister of State Security, reportedly came forward and made great efforts to obstruct the investigation, leaning on former colleagues in Hebei and other senior MSS officials.[9] Hebei provincial authorities attempted to strongarm Wang Shujin to revise his confession, including under threat of torture.

In 2015, the Hebei Province High People's Court, which upheld Nie’s murder conviction in 1995 (clearing the way for his execution), expressed "sincere apologies" to his parents on Weibo, and vacated his criminal conviction.[10] The parents were awarded 2.68 million yuan by the Chinese government in 2017 after the Supreme People's Court announced Nie's innocence in December 2016.

During his leadership of the MSS, he improved and expanded the already close collaboration with the Russian security and intelligence services begun by his predecessor, Jia Chunwang. While during the 1980s the MSS had collaborated with the United States against the Soviet Union (notably in Afghanistan), China and Russia drew closer following the end of the Cold War. The security ties between the two countries eventually led to the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2001. After Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, the collaboration in the intelligence and security fields grew to a strategic partnership.

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Following a sex scandal which ensnared several senior MSS and high communist party officials, Xu was given a forced retirement in 2007. His sentence was lenient, while others in the case were given suspended death sentences, Communist Party media reported that Xu's status as a princeling ensured that while he was "severely punished by the law" for the "tremendous political loss" of being seduced by unscrupulous businessmen, he was spared the harshest punishments.[4]