Heads are rolling in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption drive — meant to reinforce the Communist Party’s legitimacy — fells another top military official.
Liu Zheng, deputy head of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Logistics Department, is among the 16 officers — all at corps level or above — who are under investigation, the PLA website reported on Thursday. Gen. Liu has been under the scanner for alleged corruption, since November.
President Xi’s high-profile anti-graft campaign, which continues to gather momentum, has already toppled Xu Caihou, the vice-chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, of which President Xi is the head.
The purge in the top brass of the armed forces is part of a snowballing campaign, which President Xi last week said was “a matter of life or death for the Party and nation”.
An editorial in Global Times , affiliated with the Communist Party of China (CPC), on Friday said the netting of senior officers means that the military will maintain its “vibrancy” but will not become “arrogant”.
Analysts say that in its internal deliberations, the PLA is focusing on Japan’s 1894 victory, which is being attributed to corruption in China’s military then. There is also a view that the overhaul in the armed forces, one of the key pillars of power, could eventually lead to President Xi’s political consolidation.
Gen. Liu is not the first deputy head of the PLA General Logistics Department to be probed. His predecessor, Gu Junshan, has been charged with embezzlement, bribery, misuse of state funds and abuse of power.
China Daily is reporting that Gen. Gu has been indicted for bribery which has resulted in accumulation goods and property worth more $98 million — an astronomical sum, which makes it the biggest corruption case to hit PLA.
Gen. Liu, who belongs to the Second Artillery Corps Engineering School, had replaced Gen. Gu in 2012.
Other bigwigs under investigation, as part of the ongoing purge, include Yu Daqing, deputy political commissar of the Second Artillery Force, and Fan Changing, deputy political commissar of the Lanzhou Military Area Command. Former top brass netted in the crackdown in 2014 include several senior commanders, including Wei Jin, deputy political commissar of the Tibet Military Command, and Yang Jinshan, deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Command.
China said last month it was investigating Gao Xiaoyan, the head of the Party’s discipline committee at the PLA Information Engineering University.
