Two Top Chinese Military Officials Expelled from Communist Party on Corruption Charges

In a somewhat striking development, two of the topmost Chinese military officials have been expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the military on account of corruption, according to a press release from the country’s ministry of defence. Along with them are seven other officers, all of them of the rank of general.

The development came days ahead of the CPC’s fourth plenum which began on Monday and is scheduled to discuss the next five year plan amidst intense US-China tensions.

The latest officers to be expelled, in a process that goes back to the time when Xi Jinping took over as the general secretary of the CPC and president of the PRC more than a decade ago, are He Weidong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and a member of the 24-member CPC Politburo and navy admiral Miao Hua who was also in the CMC and was the top political officer of the military.

Xi also wears the top hat in the military as the chairman of the CMC which runs the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the ministry of defence is a kind of figurehead organisation in China. He is also the commander-in-chief of the Joint Operations Command Centre which is part of the CMC.

Another seven generals, some of whom are members of the central committee of the CPC have also been purged as, according to the ministry of defense spokesman, “It has been determined that these nine individuals seriously violated party discipline and allegedly committed grave duty related crimes. The amounts (of money) involved are particularly huge, the nature of the offences extremely severe and the impact exceptionally negative.”

He is the first sitting general of the CMC as well as a serving member of the politburo to be expelled since the 1966 Cultural Revolution. He has served as the head of the PLA Ground Force in the Western Theater Command which, among other things, looks after the border with India. He was one of the two vice-chairmen of the CMC and as such the third senior-most figure in the Chinese military hierarchy.

Another top official expelled from both the military and the party includes Miao Hua who was removed as member CMC last year, and was in charge of the political and personnel work. In addition to He and Miao, the seven officers under investigation and expelled from both the party and the military include: He Hongjun, Miao’s deputy and Wang Xiubin, former executive deputy director of the CMC Joint Operations Command Centre and Wang Xiubin, former executive deputy director of the CMC Joint Operations Command Centre which is headed by Xi himself. Wang had formerly headed the Southern Theatre Command which covers the South China Sea.

Both officers had disappeared from view over the past year and there was speculation about an investigation into their activities. Usually, senior officials who disappear from public view are under house arrest and are incommunicado to everyone, including their families. In fact Miao’s expulsion dates back to November 2024 when he disappeared from view but it was only formalised now. Likewise, He’s expulsion dates back several months.

Both He and Miao belonged to what is called the “Fujian” faction of the PLA. Xi had served in Fujian between 1985-2002 and was probably familiar with both of them. They served in the 31st Group Army (now rebranded as the 73rd Group Army) deployed in the region and observers said that they were beneficiaries of quick promotions in the PLA and CPC.

From the time Xi took power, there has been a crackdown on the PLA’s higher echelons. Most of them have been on account of corruption. There have been two phases of what has been termed as a purge. The first was between 2014-2016 which targeted retired CMC vice chairmen Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong along with some fifty serving officers above the rank of major-general the most important of whom were Zhang Yang, CMC’s General Political Department director and chief of general staff department Fang Fenghui. These purges were the prelude of important reforms initiated at the time that saw a complete reorganisation of the PLA and the CMC. It was said at the time that officers like Xu and Guo had created a culture of corruption wherein even the top ranks of the PLA were for sale.

The second round of purges began in May 2023 and most of those targeted belonged to the PLA’s Rocket Force (PLARF) responsible for China’s nuclear deterrent and its land-based ballistic and cruise missiles. Among those targeted were the PLARF commander and political commissar and a former commander Wei Fenghe who had later served as the Defence Minister. Li Shangfu who briefly replaced Wei as Defence Minister was also brought down for “accepting huge sums of money” and “Seeking benefits” for themselves and their families. Last June both were expelled from the CPC and prosecutions against them initiated.

In August 2023, nine officers were dismissed from the National People’s Congress most of whom were linked to the PLARF or the Equipment Development Department which does the procurement for the PLA. Among the officers were three full Generals, four Lt Generals, two Major Generals and a Vice Admiral.

Joel Wuthrow has pointed out that both purges reached to the very top of the military leadership. While in the first wave President Xi may have been motivated by a desire to consolidate power and dismiss top officers with loyalties to his predecessors, in the second wave he has focused on corruption and procurement issues. Xi’s 2015-16 reform of the CMC, too, was linked to combat corruption and bring the bureaucracy to heel. He inaugurated what is called the “CMC Chairman responsibility system” signaling his personal interest on all issues relating to national defence and the PLA.

Unlike other militaries, the PLA says it is not the armed forces of the PRC, but of the CPC. This fiction is maintained by the fact that it is governed by two parallel CMCs, one of the PRC and the other CPC. It need not be said, but the one belonging to the CPC is the one that runs things. But conversely, it also places great responsibility to handle the organisation efficiently. In the Deng period, the PLA budgets were scarce, so they were permitted to run businesses, something that naturally promoted a vast amount of corruption. Subsequently, under Jiang Zemin this freedom was curtailed but the spillover corruption remained. Under Xi, the PLA is expected to fight and win wars, principally the one that may see the invasion of Taiwan. For this reason professionalism has been encouraged by Xi and a key element in this has been to fight the old tendencies towards corruption.

Xi Jinping has loomed large in the PLA. He has uncovered and corrected problems in the organisation that he inherited from his predecessors. In 2015-2016 he brought about the most thorough-going reform in the PLA, which has helped transform it into a modern fighting force. He not only replaced the old military regions by regional commands, but also pushed integration between the various arms of the PLA. In addition he overhauled the CMC to make it more accountable and agile. But the continuing purges indicate that he is still grappling with the issue of corruption and, notwithstanding draconian actions, he does not seem to have brought the organisation fully into line.

The purges and the resultant turmoil have implications for the effectiveness of the PLA which confronts India along the Line of Actual Control that marks the Sino-Indian border. The bigger question relates to the mission of “liberating” Taiwan which Xi has set for the PLA. But beyond this, is the larger issue of the iron law of the CPC that a leader cannot effectively lead China, without the ability to work with and, ideally, control that institution.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow with the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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