China has suspended a senior military official and placed him under investigation for corruption, the Defense Ministry said, as leader Xi Jinping expands a sweeping removal into the top ranks of the military, the largest in the world.
Admiral Miao Hua, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s top military body led by Xi, is being investigated for “serious breaches of discipline” – a euphemism for corruption, the Defense Ministry spokesman said. , Wu Qian, at a press conference on Thursday (28).
Miao, 69, heads the CMC’s Political Work Department. He is widely seen as a close protégé of Xi Jinping, having served as a political officer in the army in the coastal province of Fujian when Xi was a local official there in the 1990s and 2000s.
News of Miao’s suspension and investigation came a day after the Financial Times reported that Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun had been placed under investigation for corruption, citing current and former US officials.
The Ministry of Defense spokesperson dismissed the report as “a complete fabrication”.
“These rumormongers have evil intentions. China expresses strong dissatisfaction with such smears,” he said.
Xi has led a broad crackdown on corruption in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since last year, focusing on the Missile Force, an elite unit responsible for the country’s nuclear and conventional missiles.
The removal resulted in the ouster of several senior generals, including former defense ministers Li Shangfu and his predecessor Wei Fenghe, who were expelled from the party in June over corruption allegations.
The ongoing turmoil in the military’s top ranks comes as Xi seeks to make China’s military stronger, more combat-ready and more aggressive in asserting its disputed territorial claims in the region. As part of Xi’s ambition to transform the PLA into a “world-class” fighting force, China has invested billions of dollars in purchasing and upgrading equipment.
Since last summer, more than a dozen high-level military officials and aerospace executives in the military-industrial complex have been removed from their public positions.
Most of the purged generals were linked to the Missile Force or the military equipment sector, including Li and Wei, the former defense ministers.
Last summer, Li disappeared from public view after just a few months in office and weeks after a surprise turnaround in the leadership of the Missile Force. He was removed from office in October without explanation and replaced by Dong, the current defense minister.
In China, the defense minister holds a largely ceremonial role, serving as the public face of military diplomacy with other countries. And unlike his predecessors, Dong was not appointed to the CMC, a major break with tradition in recent years.
Miao, the latest high-ranking military official to be investigated, is seen as a political godfather to Dong, who is also an admiral and was once the commander-in-chief of the PLA Navy.
A native of Fujian, a Xi power base, Miao rose through the ranks of the army’s political departments. In 2014, two years after Xi came to power, Miao received a major promotion, becoming the PLA Navy’s political commissar, coinciding with Dong’s period serving as the Navy’s deputy chief of staff. In 2017, Miao was promoted again, taking on the role of director of the CMC Political Work Department.
Xi has made rooting out corruption and disloyalty a hallmark of his rule since coming to power in 2012, and the removals suggest that campaign is far from over within the military.
“Corruption in China’s military is not a case of ‘a few bad apples.’ It is part of the ‘business’ in the PLA to a much greater extent than in most other military organizations around the world, where the rule of law and checks and balances can help expose major acts of nepotism and corruption,” he said. Lyle Morris, foreign policy and national security expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute, at X.
“Despite Xi’s best efforts, corruption in the PLA will continue and plague Xi and his successor for the foreseeable future.”
This content was originally published in China investigates senior military officer as Xi expands removal of army generals on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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