While Xi Jinping has entrenched his grip on power in China, he has likened himself to a physician, eradicate the poisons of corruption and dishonesty that threaten the rule of the Communist Party. And his signature project for more than a decade has been bringing the once highly corrupt military leadership to heel.
But recent disturbances among the high-level forces of the People’s Liberation Army indicate that Mr. Xi did not endure. Last week, he abruptly replaced two top generals in the Rocket Force, an unexplained shakeup that suggests suspicions of graft or other misconduct in the sensitive military arm that oversees conventional and nuclear missiles.
“Obviously, something went wrong in the system, which is probably related to discipline and corruption,” said Andrew ND Yang, a Chinese military expert who was a former senior Taiwanese defense official. “It’s like a virus in the system that has returned. This is a deep-rooted problem, and it has survived the system.”
A scandal involving the top brass of the armed forces would be a setback for Mr. Xi, who is proud to return the 98 million-strong Communist Party and the Chinese military the unquestioning enforcers of his rule. Days before ousting the generals, Mr. Xi fired the foreign minister, Qin Gang, another difficult dismissal for Mr. Xi, who promoted Mr. Qin as a trusted executor of his policies.
Signs of misconduct would likely bolster Mr. Xi that Chinese officials can only be prevented from deviating by intense scrutiny and pressure from above. That strategy included subjecting cadres to constant inspection by party investigators; campaigns to instill loyalty to the Communist Party and Mr. Xi; and on dismissals and arrests.
In the view of Mr. Xi, “you can’t get to the point where the risk recedes,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at American University in Washington who studies elite politics in China. “Even if you have an absolutely dominant leader, that doesn’t mean you don’t have churn in the system.”
When Mr. sat down Xi in 2012, he moved urgently to clean up corruption and lax discipline in the People’s Liberation Army, taming potential rivals and centralizing power around him — an arrangement that exemplified how he transformed China as a whole. .
In 2014, Mr. Xi hundreds high officials in the same area where Mao Zedong expanded his power over the revolutionary Red Army. Mr. warned them. Xi that the military is rotting from within. Investigators exposed Xu Caihou, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission – the party’s arm for controlling the armed forces – who amassed a fortune from bribery; a general who stored jewels and money in his homes and also consulted diviners; officials who buy and sell promotions; and some even sell confidential information.
Mr. also warned. Xi on deepening the conflict with the United States, and he told generals that internal decay could be disastrous. “That which begins in decay will slide toward destruction,” he saidcites an ancient Chinese aphorism.
In the following years, Mr. reorganized Xi is the People’s Liberation Army, which has bulldozed past potential opposition. Dozens of high-ranking officials have been convicted of corruption, and the buying and selling of promotions, once common, has receded. Mr. Xi initiated it new policies to consolidate his power as chairman of the Central Military Commission and commander in chief.
Today, almost every member of China’s military elite owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Xi, giving him a solid power edifice, said Daniel C. Mattingly, a political scientist at Yale University who examined career paths of the 1,200 officers in the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, Mr. Xi’s second-in-command is Gen. Zhang Youxiathe son of a general who served with Mr.’s father. Xi in the revolution, and a high proportion of other senior officials have career ties to Mr. Xi, some go back to his time as a local official, Mr. Mattingly said.
“The civilian norms and institutions of the Communist Party of China are already very difficult to challenge the leadership,” he said. “The fact that the PLA is full of Xi’s people makes it difficult, much more difficult.”
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force stands out as a product of Mr. Xi. He created the force in late 2015, raising it from the former missile corps. He “invested a lot of time and resources, and policy support,” said Brendan Mulvaney, the director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute at the US Air University. The Rocket Force oversees the “largest and most diverse” missile program in the world, he said. Its inventory includes an array of missiles designed to carry nearly all of China’s 400 or so nuclear warheads.
“Xi is talking about the PLA Rocket Force being central to future conflicts,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “So this massive shake-up has to have a significant reason behind it.”
The highest commander of the Rocket Force who had fallen from grace, General Li Yuchao, was elevated to that position by Mr. Xi just early last year. General Li, along with the force’s political commissar, Xu Zhongbo, and another deputy, Liu Guangbin, disappeared from public view.
Most experts believe that General Li and possibly other senior officials could be accused of absorbing some of the massive spending going into the rapidly expanding force, though other allegations of misconduct have can also play a role.
“Within the Chinese military, always follow the money. Corruption always goes hand in hand with anything they build,” said Christopher K. Johnson, the president of the China Strategies Group and a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst of Chinese politics. “Where is the money now? It is in a massive build program for their nuclear expansion.
But Mr. warned that Xi Economic corruption and political dishonesty go hand in hand. His predecessor, Hu Jintao, seemed to have weak authority at the top of the military, and the leader before Mr. Hu, Jiang Zemin, struggles with a rebellious commander. To defend his own authority, Mr. Xi to purge even the generals he promoted.
In 2017, two commanders raised by Mr. Xi’s Central Military Commission— Zhang Yang and Fang Fenghui — were ousted over corruption allegations. General Zhang took his own life, and General Fang was imprisoned.
Today, the demands for the People’s Liberation Army to show its loyalty may be doubled. A few days before Mr. Xi the two new leaders of the Rocket Force, he told troops in southwest China that the campaign against lax discipline and corruption must “deeper and deeper.” The People’s Liberation Army is also recent launched a new learning campaign to instill loyalty to him. But with so much at stake in China’s nuclear weapons programs, Mr. Xi details about the fallen rocket force officers.
“Whatever happens to the former leadership of the PLA, the Rocket Force will remain obscure to the outside world,” he said David Finkelsteinthe vice president for China and Indo-Pacific security affairs at CNA, an institution in Arlington, Va. party when disciplinary lapses occur.’”
Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting.
