Communist party investigators have detained a senior official in the provincial city of Fuyang in connection with a corruption investigation and a suspicious death as China launches its latest anti-corruption drive.

The detention of Zhang Zhi’an, Communist party chief of Yingquan district in Fuyang, Anhui province, came less than two weeks after a report in the Financial Times about his overseeing of the construction of a lavish government office, modelled on the US Capitol building and referred to by locals as the “White House”.