Xi Jinping calls on the PLA to remember the past in fight against graft
President rallies top officers in historically important town by extolling revolutionary ethics
President Xi Jinping has called on the military to reflect on discipline and uphold its revolutionary tradition in the wake of a corruption scandal involving a fomer top general.
Xi ordered more than 400 senior military officials, including leaders of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the army's four headquarters and seven key military commands as well as heads of military-related organisations to gather in the historically significant town of Gutian in Fujian province for a two-day conference that ended on Friday, Xinhua reported.
Xi called for serious thought on the disciplinary and legal violations of disgraced former CMC vice-chairman Xu Caihou, telling the gathering that the lessons learned from Xu's case deserved profound reflection while the unfavourable influence of the case had to be thoroughly cleared away.
Xu had confessed to taking bribes, military prosecutors announced last Tuesday.
Political analysts said the meeting indicated that Xi, who is also chairman of the CMC, is facing some resistance to his ongoing anti-corruption campaign and reform of the PLA.
"In Communist Party history, party heads can consolidate their political status in two ways, through ideological and military legitimacy," Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan said.
He said Xi had shown his control of ideology by chairing a forum of writers and artists last month.
However, Xi had yet to gain full control over the PLA, since the party's fourth plenum did not promote his allies, Liu Yuan and Zhang Youxia, to CMC vice-chairmen, Zhang said.
The reported separately that Xi had taken the military leaders to visit the venue of the historic Gutian Party Congress in 1929 and a memorial hall for Mao Zedong to reiterate the importance of upholding the traditional spirit of the PLA's predecessor, the Red Army.
At that congress, Mao reaffirmed party leadership and proposed the principle of "the party leading the army", an important tenet in the history of the party and the PLA. Xi adopted that principle when he became head of the PLA two years ago.
Xi also visited an experimental development zone in Pingtan county.
Xi spent 17 years in official positions in Fujian.
