Ma Xingrui, 66, has been a member of the Communist Party's Politburo since 2022. A few months ago, China analysts noted that he was no longer attending meetings or being seen in public.
State media said on Friday that Ma is being investigated for violations of the law and is the subject of a disciplinary case, following the pattern of previous cases in which President Xi Jinping has forcibly removed or imprisoned people in the top echelons of power.
Xi has thus forced three Politburo members aside since December, the largest such purge at that level in decades.
