China Ousts Senior General on Corruption Charges

Asia Pacific|Senior Chinese General Is Ousted on Corruption Charges

China announced on Friday that one its top military commanders had been dismissed and would be prosecuted on charges of corruption and abuse of power, confirming that the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s extraordinary succession of purges in the People’s Liberation Army had reached its topmost ranks.

The commander, Gen. He Weidong, a member of the 24-member Politburo, the Chinese Communist Party’s second-highest tier, was also a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the party body that controls the armed forces. That put him third in China’s military hierarchy, after Mr. Xi and another commander.

The Ministry of National Defense said General He and eight other senior military officers had been expelled from the military and from the party. Some were already known or rumored to be under investigation, and General He stopped making public appearances earlier this year, an indication that he was probably in trouble.

The ministry gave no details about the misdeeds that General He and the other commanders were accused of. But it said the charges involved corruption.

The punishments “underscore the clear stance that there is absolutely no place for corrupt elements to hide within the military,” Senior Col. Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesman for the ministry, said in a statement on its website.

Some experts have said that the recent graft investigations and the ensuing disruption in the military command may have undermined Mr. Xi’s confidence that the People’s Liberation Army was ready for major combat. But Colonel Zhang offered a positive view, saying the punishments would “further strengthen the purity” of the military and give it “greater cohesion and combat effectiveness.”

The other expelled commanders include Adm. Miao Hua, who oversaw political work in the military and was placed under investigation last year. Another was Gen. Lin Xiangyang, who was in charge of the Eastern Theater Command. That regional command would be central to any war over Taiwan, the democratically governed island that has resisted Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over it.

In a recent assessment of the purges in China’s military, Mark Parker Young, a former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia, wrote that Mr. Xi’s “willingness to sacrifice institutional cohesion and capacity in the P.L.A. suggests he still does not anticipate fighting a war in the near-term.”

The dismissals were announced days ahead of a Communist Party leadership meeting. That four-day gathering of the Central Committee, which starts on Monday, will give Mr. Xi an opportunity to promote new commanders.

Soon after coming to power in 2012, Mr. Xi launched a campaign against corruption and disloyalty in the military and elsewhere. Former commanders were imprisoned on charges of taking bribes, selling promotions in rank and other crimes. The anticorruption investigations in the P.L.A. appeared to wane for a few years, but they regained momentum after Mr. Xi began a third term in power in 2022, indicating that he believes there are still problems there.

General He, 68, is the most senior commander to fall in the renewed campaign. His rise reflected Mr. Xi’s patronage, and his downfall could be an embarrassment to the top leader.

Mr. Xi catapulted him into the Politburo in 2022, when he also became one of two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. Previously, General He had served in Fujian, the Chinese province facing Taiwan, and as commander of the Eastern Theater Command.

Late last year, the authorities announced that Admiral Miao had been suspended, on suspicion of “serious violations of discipline.” He had also been on the Central Military Commission, though at a lower rank than General He. Also last year, Communist Party leaders formally accused two former defense ministers — Gen. Li Shangfu and Gen. Wei Fenghe — of corruption, including taking huge bribes and trading in military promotions.

In 2023, Mr. Xi abruptly removed two commanders of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which controls China’s nuclear missiles. A dozen or more other military officers and senior managers of defense industry companies have also been purged, apparently a result of investigations by anticorruption officials.

Despite the upheavals in its highest ranks, the Chinese military has continued to rapidly expand and upgrade its weaponry. The party-run legislature this year approved an increase of 7.2 percent in the defense budget, bringing official military spending this year to about $246 billion. Many experts say China’s real military expenditures are markedly higher.

China’s unbroken decades of rising military spending have paid for more and increasingly sophisticated missiles, warships and submarines. American intelligence officials have said that Mr. Xi has ordered that the P.L.A. must be able to seize Taiwan by 2027.

“In most systems, repeated purges of senior military leaders would trigger crisis or resistance,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who studies China’s military. “Xi’s ability to churn and burn through top generals without sparking significant institutional pushback reveals the strength, not fragility, of his rule.”