Military State-of-Play in Deep Waters
Covering Chinese chatters (discourses, narratives, policies and rhetoric) on external events and actors, military and security issues, economy and technology, and bilateral relations with India.
Greetings! This edition of ‘Eye on China’ comes after a couple weeks, and in this time, a bunch of both domestic and external developments have occurred in and around China. Even though much has been said about them, in subsequent editions, I hope to discuss them in some detail, especially for the Indian audience. Today, I will be detailing the developments vis-à-vis purges of the two former Ministers of National Defence at a recent Politburo meeting, and Xi’s speech at the Yan’an CMC Political Work Conference.
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Guarding the Great Wall #1: Li and Wei expelled
On June 27, it has been officially declared that two previous Ministers of National Defense of China, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, have been expelled from both the Party and the military, and have been transferred to the military procuratorate for prosecution. This represents a new high point in the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign in the military, reminiscent of the downfall of former Politburo members and Central Military Commission Vice-Chairmen, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Li Shangfu’s case
To begin with, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) deliberated and approved the report from the Central Military Commission on the “Review Results and Handling Opinions Regarding Li Shangfu’s Issues.” The decision made subsequently was that Li Shangfu, former defence minister of China (holding the place before incumbent DefMin Dong Jun), would be expelled from the CPC and his qualification as a representative of the 20th National Congress of the CPC would be truncated.
This decision comes as the last leg of the investigation launched against Li Shangfu on “serious violations of discipline and law” on August 31, 2023. His case was handled by the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Commission of the Central Military Commission (CMC).
As per the ‘Review Results’ document, Li Shangfu has been accused of “seriously violating political discipline by failing to fulfill his political responsibilities for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, and by resisting organizational review.” It was noted that “He also severely violated organizational discipline by illegally seeking personal and others’ personnel benefits. He used his position to seek benefits for others and accepted large sums of money, being suspected of bribery. Additionally, he offered money to others to seek illegitimate benefits, which constitutes suspected bribery.”
The case of Li Shangfu revolves around corruption in the CMC Equipment Development Department (EDD), for which he served as Director between 2017 and 2022. As a candidate favoured by Xi Jinping, and a known protègè of incumbent CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia, Li Shangfu, an aerospace engineer by profession, was promoted to the post of National Defence Minister in March 2023. His appointment was controversial because of the sanctions placed on him and the CMC-EDD by the United States in 2018, under the ambit of the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA)’. Considering the implications this would have for Sino-US relations, in all likelihood, Xi had a direct role in Li’s appointment.
And yet, the CMC’s ruling has been that as a a senior leader of the Party and the military, Li “betrayed his original mission, lost his principles of Party conduct, and his actions betrayed the trust and heavy responsibilities entrusted by the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission.” Further, the ‘Review Results’ document argued that “his behavior severely polluted the political and professional environment in the military equipment sector, causing significant damage to the Party’s cause, national defense, and military construction, as well as to the image of senior leaders. The nature of his actions is extremely serious, with extremely adverse impacts and particularly significant harm.”
Previously, the CMC had already decided to expel Li from the military and revoke his rank as an Army General. But Li’s expulsion is not all that was announced at the Politburo meeting. In fact, his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, was also expelled, and this decision came at the heels of the truncation of his previous rank of Rocket Force general.
Wei Fenghe’s Case
The investigation into Wei was opened up by the CMC CCDI in September 2023, and as per the Politburo document, ‘Review Results and Handling Opinions Regarding Wei Fenghe’s Issues’, it has been ascertained, that:
“Wei Fenghe seriously violated political discipline by failing to fulfill his political responsibilities for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, and by resisting organizational review. He also severely violated organizational discipline by illegally seeking personnel benefits for others. Furthermore, he violated integrity discipline by illegally accepting gifts and money. Using his position, he sought benefits for others and accepted large sums of money, being suspected of bribery. Other serious violations of discipline and law were also discovered during the investigation. As a senior leader of the Party and the military, Wei Fenghe’s faith collapsed, and he betrayed his loyalty.”
Both Wei and Li have been suspected of being part of a larger scandal rocking the PLA Rocket Force, and are at the top few of the nine generals, including previous and serving commanders from the PLA Rocket Force and the air force as well as a number of CMC-EDD officials, who have been dismissed from their National People’s Congress representation in December 2023.
Interestingly, even though Wei had disappeared from the public eye soon after Li took over his post as MoND, he was believed to have been marked safe when his name appeared on in a CCTV report of May 2024, on a list of former State Councillors who sent a wreath to Wuyun Qimuge, the former Vice-Chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, during her cremation.
In any case, below is a table comparing the similarities and differences in Li and Wei’s ‘Review Results’ documents, vis-à-vis the crimes they have been charged with:
Sign of Weakness?
The more interesting question emerging from Li Shangfu, Wei Fenghe and even Qin Gang’s downfall is about the political state of play within the Party-state system. Over the past decade, Xi has gradually cemented his position at the top of the CPC, with his stature today comparable to Mao Zedong. Moreover, his authority only appears to be strengthening.
For instance, since April 2023, the entire Party-state system has been engaged in a campaign to study ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ and its implications for their work. The second phase of this education campaign is currently underway. Party-state media and senior officials have also repeatedly emphasised that Xi’s thought is the fundamental guideline for policy action that must be adhered to for a long time to come.
In other words, challenging Xi’s authority is akin to challenging the Party’s monopoly over truth, as well as the legitimacy of its rule. The current flux in terms of personnel changes, therefore, should not be read as a sign of Xi’s weakness before opposing factions.
Instead, the system today is at a stage in which the leadership question is a settled one, at least until Xi is around or can function effectively. However, this does not mean that policy and factional contestation have ended. In the CPC system, factions are not formal or ossified groups; these are networks or loose coalitions of individuals and institutions that seek to capture greater power and influence policy.
Factions may be ideological or personal association-based, power-seeking, bureaucratic in nature, or arbitrary and fungible associations. Even though Xi has done much to undo the factional struggles of the likes witnessed under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, such interest-based coalitions seeking more authority for themselves are part of system design.
In this context, the current state of play, with the fall of Li and Qin, appears to be one in which factional struggles are intensifying, albeit without challenging Xi’s position. In this struggle, rivals at lower levels are competing for power and policy relevance and currying favour with the all-powerful leader, while undercutting their opposition.
In order to do so, they are likely to align their narratives and actions with the priorities of the leader. Given Xi’s emphasis on cracking down on personal and professional corruption and achieving tangible results in key domains, such as industrialisation, emerging technologies, military capacity, and so on, it isn’t surprising that institutional changes and purges are underway. In this process, old skeletons in the closet involving interpersonal or business relationships are likely to be brought to the fore.
In fact, as things progress, there is a greater possibility of tumult and personnel purges at different levels of the system. These will be politically destabilising and hinder policy implementation. But they are unlikely to undermine Xi’s authority in the near term.
In fact, in the short run, Xi’s willingness to sacrifice Li and Qin can be seen as a sign of confidence in his position, and the expendable nature of cadres at that level. If, however, senior CMC officials and close confidants like Zhang Youxia are sacrificed, then there’s likely a deeper crisis at hand, because it will signal that nobody’s position is secure.
Overall, these incidents mean that both of the last two Ministers of National Defence of China have been dishonourably discharged, and it almost reminds me of the curse Voldemort placed on the ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts’ position in Harry Potter!
An important aspect of Chinese politics is also highlighted here – that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is highly flexible, prolonged, and powerful, and at the same time, neither his loyalists, nor his inner circle are free of skeletons in their closets, which are bound to come out if political pressures continue.
Guarding the Great Wall #2: Yan’an Political Work Conference of the Central Military Commission
The backdrop for the announcements pertaining to Li and Wei was formed by the 2024 CMC Political Work Conference that took place in Yan’an city on June 20. Xi made a speech at the Conference, and the main highlight therein was his enumeration of ‘six key tasks’ of the military going forward. I’ll delve into these in no particular order.
To get the beast out of the way, the fourth task that Xi highlighted was to “eradicate the soil and conditions where corruption breeds.” Here, Xi made some interesting points. First, he argued to “enhance the toolbox” that will be used to fight corruption, all the while also “expanding the depth and breadth of the anti-corruption struggle.” This, Xi says, will also be done through an “improved mechanism of power allocation and operational constraints.” My guess is that a good case study to assess the implementation of such shifts in power allocation, is the disbandment of the PLA Strategic Support Force, where its three new transformed branches are now under direct control of the CMC. In a PLA Daily commentary complementing the report of the Political Work Conference, the author does highlight that the senior cadres are in most need of comprehensive supervision, as they have the potential to set both positive and negative examples for the junior cadres. This speaks directly to the reinvigorated light in which the cases of Li, Wei, and other PLA generals are being seen.
Further, at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Xi pointed out that in the “new journey of the anti-corruption struggle,” the general requirement is to promote a coordinated approach to ensuring that officials do not dare to be corrupt, cannot be corrupt, and do not want to be corrupt. In his Political Work Conference remarks, he discussed precisely what a “coordinated approach means” – the “main responsibility” of the Party Committee, the supervision responsibility of the Discipline Inspection Commission, and the responsibility of industry departments in charge of clean governance. I am assuming that “industry departments” here refer to the independent “supervisory commissions” that were piloted across the country, including in country-level governments, after the meeting of the 12th NPC in November 2017. These supervisory commissions have been tasked with achieving “peerless capability” towards clean governance. However, if I am missing something, please do mention in the comments.
The first and sixth tasks Xi highlighted pertain to ideological consciousness of the military’s “theoretical armament,” and ideological correctness in the working style of cadres. These are interlinked because while the first one focuses on bringing about excellence in implementation of military theory and innovation in learning styles, the latter emphasises perfection in practice of military theory, especially by senior cadres. This sixth task, on “restoring and carrying forward the fine tradition of political work,” also had a complementary commentary in the PLA Daily, where the author argues, “Political work relies thirty percent on talking and seventy percent on doing; exemplary action is the best political work.” Further, he says that the fine tradition of political work has “seeking truth from facts” at its core, and that “Adhering to seeking truth from facts means preventing subjective work guidance, avoiding work styles detached from the masses, refraining from quick success-driven work demands, steering clear of rigid work attitudes, and avoiding methods that block rather than guide.” So the suggestion is to basically circumvent bureaucratism and formalism, and be prepared for a long delivery runway instead of quick turnarounds.
Finally, the second and third key tasks Xi talks about refer to cultivating talent throughout the hierarchy of cadres. While second task in specific instructs organisational leadership to do better, and integrate overseeing mechanisms at every stage of war preparation, the third task demands that knowledge and basic skill training penetrate every single rung of cadres in the military apparatus. It makes sense for the emphasis to be on oversight, given stories surrounding rocket solid-fuel being used by soldiers to make hotpot. At the same time, given the highly advanced requirements of military modernisation in the PLA at this juncture, the emphasis on talent is equally necessary, given that there is no scope for mediocrity in an army that aims to become “world class” in a little over two decades.
Overall, Xi also highlighted deep insight into one’s actions and activities, and suggested self-correction, which is an important concept in the Party-state’s governance culture overall. With the PLA and the CMC standing in deep waters, we are likely to see such rhetoric continue to blow up.
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