Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken property tycoon who slammed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic, was sentenced to 18 years in jail on graft charges on Tuesday.

The former chairperson of Huayuan Group was jailed for corruption, bribery, embezzlement of public funds and abuse of power as an employee of a state-owned enterprise. The 69-year-old was also fined 4.2 million yuan (US$618,706), Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court said on its website on Tuesday.

The defendant accepted the verdict and would not appeal the court’s decision, the statement added.

Ren, who was nicknamed “Ren the Big Cannon” for his vocal criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, lambasted the authorities' missteps in handling the outbreak and warned against a growing concentration of power in an online essay in March.

“Standing there was not an emperor showing us his new clothes, but a clown who has no clothes on but still determined to play emperor,” he wrote, without naming Xi.

Ren was subsequently expelled from the party and put under investigation for “serious violations of law and discipline”, the Commission for Discipline Inspection in Beijing announced in April.

The court verdict said he “voluntarily and truthfully confessed all his crimes”. Ren was found to have amassed some 1.25 million yuan (US$184,139) in bribes, embezzled 61 million yuan (US$8.98 million) and caused 117 million yuan (US$17.23 million) of economic losses at unspecified state-owned companies between 2003 and 2017, among other allegations.

It is common for China to press economic charges against dissidents, according to veteran political commentator Johnny Lau.

“If the party thinks you are playing along, they might let you out of jail after a while and there is no need to serve a full sentence,” Lau said. “But if you don’t, you may end up like Liu Xiaobo and stay in prison until you die.”

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