Former top general Xu Caihou to be charged with bribery offences

Military prosecutors yesterday said they would charge a retired top general with bribery after a seven-month investigation, making it the most high-profile anti-corruption case in the history of the People’s Liberation Army.

Xu Caihou, former vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) which is the mainland’s supreme command, was stripped of all military titles, Xinhua reported. He confessed to taking “extremely large” amounts of bribes through family members to help others gain promotion, it said. The Communist Party put Xu under investigation in March and expelled him in June.

Xu, 71, was the CMC vice-chairman from 2004 to 2012 under former president Hu Jintao. As Hu – the the-then CMC chairman – had weak control over the military, Xu ran the day-to-day operations of the world’s largest army.

Yesterday’s announcement came as the party released a detailed plan to revamp the nation’s legal system and tackle corruption after a top-level meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping last week.

Indicting Xu is one of the Xi’s boldest moves to clean up corruption. Many thought Xu would be spared as he was terminally ill and no longer a threat to the new president. The PLA Daily yesterday confirmed that Xu was diagnosed with bladder cancer in February last year.

By going after him, Xi was sending a strong message of his determination to stamp out corruption in the army, said Xu Guangyu, a retired PLA major general. “The high-profile announcement also aims at sending a warning message to military officials deviating from the rules,” he said.