In June 2024, China’s Politburo expelled former ministers of national defence General Li Shangfu and General Wei Fenghe from the Chinese Communist Party for violating political discipline and accepting bribes. The persistent corruption amid China’s top military brass has raised concerns over potential disloyalty and military readiness, casting doubt over President Xi Jinping’s control over the Community Party despite a decade-long anti-corruption campaign.
On 27 June 2024, China’s Politburo expelled former minister of national defence General Li Shangfu and his predecessor General Wei Fenghe from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both were charged with violating political discipline, disloyalty and accepting bribes.
The double expulsion capped a year of speculation about a purge of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that began in March 2023 when General Wei retired and was replaced by General Li, who was then suddenly sacked in October 2023 after serving just seven months.
In December 2023, a series of high-ranking PLA officers were expelled from the National People’s Congress. These include Commander of the Rocket Force General Li Yuchao, former Commander of the Rocket Force General Zhou Yaning, Commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force General Ding Laihang and Commander of the South China Fleet Rear Admiral Ju Xinchun.
The June 2024 expulsions of generals Wei and Li not only appeared to confirm that a purge of the PLA was underway, but also mirrored the downfall of generals Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong in 2014–15, both having also been vice chairs of the Central Military Commission. Like Wei and Li, Xu and Guo were accused of political disloyalty and accepting bribes. In both instances, the fall of these senior officers was reportedly accompanied by a purge of dozens of other senior officers, with over 80 allegedly taken down between 2012 and 2016 and two dozen during 2023–24.
In Xi’s first purge of the PLA, most of those taken down were said to have bought promotions from Xu and Guo, then recouped their ‘investments’ by accepting bribes from subordinates and suppliers. The charges against those taken down in Xi’s second purge remain murky. Few have been formally charged and many remain the subject of rumours.
Xi’s motives in ordering the removal of senior PLA officers are unclear. Speculation has focused on two main possibilities — corruption and disloyalty.
In June 2024, Xi told a meeting of senior commanders in Yan’an, the CCP’s old revolutionary wartime base, that ‘the barrels of guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and dependable to the party’ and that ‘there is no place for any corrupt elements in the military’.
Yet according to unidentified US intelligence sources cited in the Western media, inspectors may have uncovered evidence that missiles had been filled with water rather than rocket fuel and that missile silos had been improperly built. Experts suggested Li may have approved or tolerated the purchase of substandard weapons at inflated prices.
The Chinese rumour mill, meanwhile, alluded to possible subterranean factional battles pitting officers loyal to the old ‘Shanghai Gang’ associated with the late CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin against members of the ‘New Zhijiang Army’ — also known as the ‘Xi Family Army’ — which was itself said to be split into rival factions. These include the ‘Zhejiang Gang’, the ‘Fujian Gang’ and the ‘Shandong Gang’.
Evidence of corruption and suspicions of disloyalty are not mutually exclusive possibilities. They are two faces of a much more serious political crisis for Xi.
Immediately after taking power in 2013, Xi cracked down on corruption. Whereas his predecessors had battled corruption among low and mid-level officials, Xi opened a new drive against corruption at the CCP’s senior levels — officials tagged ‘tigers’ by the Chinese press. Xi’s ‘hunters’ have since ‘bagged’ over 400 tigers, including one former member of the Politburo Standing Committee and four members of the Politburo. The crackdown remains ongoing and Xi’s second purge of the PLA coincided with a surge that pushed the annual number of tigers bagged to levels similar to the early years of Xi’s attack on corruption.
The fact that Xi is still confronting widespread corruption after a decade at the top might suggest that — contrary to the conventional wisdom that Xi is an unchallenged strongman — Xi has actually failed to consolidate his grip on the CCP.
Corruption on an individual level involves usurping public authority for personal gain. Yet persistent widespread corruption, particularly in the face of a putatively intense anti-corruption drive, suggests that many of Xi’s subordinates — including those he promoted — are continuing to flaunt CCP discipline.
Even more critically, they have not been cowed by the takedown of tens of thousands of their comrades. Xi may command fevered pledges of fidelity in public, but these seem hollow given the failure of officials at all levels to comply with his demand that they honestly serve the people and the party — and obey him.
The possibility of serious corruption and possible disloyalty in the strategic forces, and perhaps other branches of the PLA, ought to cause Xi grave concern. Like the Qing emperors who spent large sums importing a state-of-the art navy in the wake of China’s defeat in the Opium Wars, Xi has spent heavily to upgrade and expand China’s strategic forces in the face of worsening relations with the United States and Japan and increasing tensions over Taiwan.
If the commanders of his strategic forces have lined their pockets buying unreliable weapons and promoting corrupt officers, Xi faces a grim possibility. His shiny new arsenal might fail like the Qing navy did during the 1894–95 Sino–Japanese War, where incompetent commanders and equipment failures crippled the Qing fleet and deepened China’s humiliation at the hands of foreign imperialists.
Republished from EAST ASIA FORUM, August 03, 2024
Andrew Wedeman
Andrew Wedeman is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University and leads its China Studies Program.