In the wake of the DPRK’s Jang Song-thaek’s purge, reports have emerged that People’s Republic of China security chief Zhou Yongkang may be under investigation for corruption charges. Until his retirement last year, Zhou was a member of the PRC’s Politburo Standing Committee and exercised great power in Sichuan province, managing the oil revenues and a provincial population of some 80 million.

Current Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has made it a pledge of his administration to root out and destroy corruption within the ruling Communist Party, and hooking such a large fish like Zhou would add credence to this aim. Since his retirement, Zhou’s apprentice Li Chuncheng, a former deputy party chief of Sichuan province, was sidelined by corruption and graft charges while another, Jiang Jiemin, former head of the China National Petroleum Corp., was recently fired from that position.

The tale becomes even more Byzantine when Zhou’s connections to former governor of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, are considered. Bo Xilai’s downfall was one of the most public in recent Chinese history and the show trial to which he was subjected convicted him of a range of crimes ranging from general abuse of power to corruption and graft. The elite within the Chinese Communist Party abhorred Bo Xilai’s demagoguery and reportedly detested his openly campaigning for a position on the Politburo Standing Committee.

Zhou Yongkang’s support of Bo Xilai, and Bo’s subsequent downfall, have left Zhou in a weakened and politically awkward position with his peers on the Standing Committee which will likely result in a more private, but no less glorious, fall from grace.

[TIME]