Former Tsinghua Unigroup chair given suspended capital punishment in corruption scandal

The Intermediate People’s Court in Jilin has handed former Tsinghua Unigroup chairman Zhao Weiguo a capital punishment with a two-year reprieve—an outcome that almost always becomes life imprisonment. State broadcaster CCTV said the court found Zhao’s misconduct “extremely huge” in scale and severely damaging to state interests.

Prosecutors detailed a pattern of abuse: steering lucrative deals to relatives and friends, funneling state assets worth about 470 million yuan (roughly $65 million) into private hands, and saddling a listed subsidiary with transactions that left the state facing losses of nearly 890 million yuan (about $124 million). Zhao admitted guilt, expressed remorse, and tried to repay some of the illicit gains—factors the court cited in opting for the suspended sentence rather than immediate execution.

Zhao joined Tsinghua Unigroup in the 1990s and later engineered an aggressive acquisition spree that briefly positioned the company as a national champion for semiconductors. Holdings included mobile-chip designer Unisoc and NAND-producer YMTC. The expansion was underwritten by government funding and heavy bond issuance, aligning Unigroup with Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” drive for chip self-sufficiency.

The strategy unraveled when the group defaulted on bond payments in 2020 and amassed debts reported at about $31 billion. A court-led restructuring in 2022 ousted both Zhao and the company’s original shareholders—Tsinghua University and a Zhao-controlled vehicle—in favor of a consortium backed by state venture capital funds.

Zhao’s conviction is one of several recent probes targeting high-profile figures in China’s semiconductor push. After years of rapid investment—and some high-profile failures—authorities are signaling that future state support will come with far stricter scrutiny.