Chinese financial watchdog official faces probe amid law violations

Zhengzhou [China], July 24 : A senior official, Li Huanting, who worked under the Chinese financial watchdog's provincial bureau is facing a probe for serious law violations, a local media report said.
China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBRIC) inspector Huanting is said to be involved in actions that breach the law regulations, Global Times reported.
His probe comes in the wake of large-scale protests in Henan province where bank depositors are demanding the release of frozen funds.
On Friday, the provincial financial supervision bureau published a notice that they will repay the victims of the recent banking scam in order to placate the Henan bank protestors, local media reported.
According to local media, people who had deposited up to 50,000 yuan were repaid and now people with deposits up to 100,000 are getting repaid.
Earlier, The Chinese Communist Party's tanks Wednesday rolled on the streets to scare Henan bank protestors amid large-scale protests in the province by bank depositors over the release of frozen funds.
Reports claiming Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA's) tanks are on the streets to protect Banks (Rizhao, Shandong Province) emerged, reported local media.
The incident comes in the light of the Henan branch of the Bank of China declaring that people's savings in their branch are 'investment products' and can't be withdrawn, added the media.
On July 10, more than 1,000 depositors gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, to launch their largest protest yet.
Non-mainstream Hong Kong media also believes that at such a time when stability is emphasized most and stability is in Chinese President Xi Jinping's interest, allowing such incidents to get bigger (such as the Zhengzhou bank protests) shows that these banks really do not have money to spare, at least not until the issues are resolved.
A good chunk of revenue for the local governments comes from leasing land, especially to real estate developers and since so many projects are lying unfinished, many construction companies have not bought land again, affecting the local government's revenue.
Meanwhile, a Twitter account has noted that as early as 2 years ago, a Henan man surnamed Zhu was detained by police for spreading "false info" about a local bank in a WeChat group, which caused a mass withdrawal. The recent Henan banks crisis and the relevant protests have proved the 2-year-old false info apparently true, a local media reported.
Recently a video has been shared on Telegram showing a group of representative workers of China's Railway No. 4 Engineering Group Co. Ltd, a state-owned enterprise, demanding wages from the officials.