Perhaps Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense, could meet the fourth Chinese defense minister if Beijing appoints him before the transfer of powers in the White House. The first two were dismissed by corruption and the third is on the way, according to the British media ‘Financial Times’. There is no chair hotter than the one on defense minister nor an establishment more suspicious of past and present shenanigans.
He Admiral Dong Junminister since December, is being investigated “in the framework of a broad campaign” against the military corruptionthe newspaper maintains, citing official US sources. There is no official response from China yet nor will there be one soon. If true, the process will be long and will include apologies for future public absences due to illness. TO Dong He was last seen last week at an international summit of his guild in Laos. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson, asked about the news, responded to the journalist that he was “chasing shadows.”
He defense minister in China It lacks political leadership functions, an exclusive competence of the party. It is a protocol position in charge of representing the Army and relations with the press and its international counterparts. His statements reveal the positions of the political elite on military issues.
Military dialogue with the US
Dong He never enjoyed a solid position. Contrary to casuistry, it did not enter the Central Military Commissionthe military leadership body, nor in the State Council. Of his mandate, the recovery of the military dialogue con USAfinalized in May after 18 months of silence. Beijing had interrupted it after the visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives. His departure will not change the helm but underlines Xi’s desire for a clean Army and the drive of his senior officials to dirty it.
China lived an unprecedented day in June. He dismissed two Defense Ministers with a single note in the official press: him, and his predecessor, Wei Fenghewho served between 2018 and 2013. Both had already been expelled from the Central Military Commission and are still waiting for a conviction that is taken for granted. Li was bribed and bribedalways with “large amounts of money.” Wei would have accepted excessive gifts and charged in exchange for favors. Li and Wei “misplaced party principles” and “seriously contaminated the military’s political ecosystem,” according to the indictment.
Xi Jinping Last decade, he inherited an army with a well-deserved shady reputation. They were known charge auctions to the highest bidder and corruption in the numerous linked businesses. Xi purged the elite, who arrived more for bribes than for their merits, and deprived the Army of its lucrative activities. The scope for corruption was reduced to supply contracts, as onerous as they were opaque.
Auction of senior officials
The campaign has been accentuated in the last year. Nine generals and a handful of other senior officials have already fallen. No division has suffered more than the Missile Force, an elite establishment that controls the arsenal of conventional and nuclear missiles. Three officials, including the powerful Sun Jinming, have been dismissed for “serious violations of party discipline,” the euphemistic formula for corrupt practices.
Last month, Xi stressed the duty of his Armed Forces to be exemplary and asked that they be ready for combat. The first is related to the second: the party has always been concerned that the auction of senior officials ruin the effectiveness of an Army to which millions of dollars are allocated.
