Breaking rank: military graft no longer taboo topic in China
In scenes unimaginable before, PLA delegates at the session in Beijing tell the media about the extent of corruption in the senior ranks
In a departure from previous years, military corruption is being discussed at the parliamentary sessions in Beijing, with several PLA delegates conducting high-profile media interviews describing examples of misconduct in striking detail.
Avoiding the topic completely would have been a challenge given the widening scope of the crackdown, which has claimed dozens of leading officers in recent months. On March 2, three days before the sessions opened, the defence ministry named 14 generals who were either under investigation or had been convicted of graft.
The list included Guo Zhenggang, deputy political commissar of Zhejiang's military command and son of former Central Military Commission (CMC) vice-chairman Guo Boxiong.
That announcement followed the release in mid-January of the names of 16 military officers put under investigation in 2014. This list included another former CMC vice-chairman, Xu Caihou, the biggest military "tiger" caught so far.
Yang Chunchang, a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member and a former aide to Xu, told Phoenix Television that his former boss had built a corrupt culture within the army and there was a market price for every senior position.
Liu Jian, a retired major general and CPPCC member, pointed the finger at retired General Guo Boxiong , telling that "parents cannot escape their responsibility when their children are not educated well".
Several other People's Liberation Army delegates have made calls for efforts to promote transparency within the army.
But in his meeting with PLA delegates on Thursday, President Xi Jinping , who chairs the CMC, barely mentioned the drive.
Jingdong Yuan, a professor with the University of Sydney's Centre for International Security Studies, said Xi was trying to address problems within the PLA that were undermining not only its image but also its ability to fight and win wars. "Clearly, [the campaign] suggests Xi is determined to weed out corruption and that he will use demotions and prosecutions to serve as a deterrent against future such behaviour," Yuan said.
Steve Tsang, dean of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham, said the campaign was about ensuring Xi's grip on the PLA and strengthening its capacity as a fighting force. However, neither expert thought Xi was likely to hand over supervision of the army to the public and parliament. "The PLA is much too important to the Communist Party to be subject to parliamentary supervision - unless the supervision is led and run by the party or its top leader," Tsang said.
