China’s ruling Communist Party has decided to launch an investigation into top military officials, including PLA chief Gen Zhang Youxia, for serious violations of party discipline and laws, Beijing’s defense ministry said on Saturday.
Zhang is a member of the Communist Party’s elite Politburo and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission – the overall high command of the Chinese military headed by President Xi Jinping. Liu is the chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, according to the ministry.
“After deliberations by the CPC Central Committee, it has been decided to open an investigation into Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli,” China’s Defense Ministry said in a brief press release, news channel PTI reported.
Xi Jinping’s “Anti-Corruption Campaign”
Dozens of senior officers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been dismissed or punished as part of Xi Jinping’s intensified anti-corruption campaign since he took power in 2012.
In an internal speech in October last year, Xi stressed that corruption was the “biggest threat” facing the party and said the cases were yet another reminder that the fight remained “murky and complex”.
President Xi Jinping – aged 72 – currently in his unprecedented third five-year term as president, launched an anti-graft campaign against “tigers and flies” – big and small officials – when he took power in 2012.
This included two former defense ministers and dozens of senior PLA officers.
Earlier, He Weidong, the CMC’s second military official, was expelled from the party and the armed forces in October last year.
Last month, China’s parliament expelled three officials:
– Wang Renhua, head of the Political and Legal Committee of the CMC;
— Zhang Hongbing, Political Commissar of the People’s Armed Police (PAP);
– and Wang Peng, Director of the CMC Training Department
More than a million officials punished in anti-graft campaign
Xi is the only Chinese leader since the ruling Communist Party’s founder Mao Zedong to remain in power for more than two terms.
Earlier, state media reports said over a million officials, including dozens of senior military officials, had been punished as part of the anti-graft campaign.
Critics have said the intensity of the campaign and its continuation have also helped Xi consolidate his power in the party and the military.
