New | PLA vows to beef up corruption crackdown; pledges 'absolute loyalty' to Xi

The People’s Liberation Army has vowed to beef up its efforts against corruption this year under “absolute loyalty” to the Communist Party leadership.

Commissars, regiment commanders and more senior officers as well as those in corruption-prone sectors within the PLA would be the key targets in its crackdown this year, the PLA Daily on Thursday quoted Central Military Commission vice-chairman General Xu Qiliang as saying in a meeting on Wednesday.

Xu’s comments came a day after President Xi Jinping addressed the plenary session of the national anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. He vowed to keep up the intensity of his anti-graft campaign and urged cadres to abide by both written and unwritten party rules on discipline.

Xu pledged “absolute loyalty” to Xi and the party, vowing to thoroughly crack down on factions within the military, the PLA Daily said. The general also said the PLA should enhance the management of its anti-graft system in a “scientific and rule-of-law manner”, although the report did not give any concrete examples.

Calls for the PLA to set up an independent agency to oversee anti-graft work in the military have been growing since some of its key figures were ensnared in Xi’s corruption crackdown.

The military’s top graft-buster, the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Military Commission currently comes under the PLA’s General Political Department.