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In a first, China accuses former defence ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe of corruption
- Both men have also been expelled from the Communist Party in an unprecedented Politburo announcement
In an unprecedented move, Beijing has announced corruption investigations into two former defence ministers.
Earlier meetings of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the country’s top military decision-making body, also stripped Li and Wei of their positions as generals and membership of the People’s Liberation Army, it added.
The investigation into Li began on August 31 and concluded that he had accepted “large sums of money” to seek benefits for others. He had also bribed others, according to the statement.
Wei came under investigation on September 21 and is accused of accepting unauthorised gifts and large amounts of money in exchange for using his power to obtain benefits for others. He is not accused of taking bribes.
The investigations also uncovered evidence of other possible “serious disciplinary and criminal offences” by the two men, the statement added, without giving details.
Both men will face criminal prosecution, according to the Xinhua report.
It is the first time in the history of the People’s Liberation Army that corruption investigations into two defence ministers have been made public on the same day.
Chinese defence ministers play a different role to the foreign counterparts. They are mostly military diplomats who have very limited command power and have a low rank in the party’s Central Military Commission, headed by Xi.
Thursday’s report used unusually harsh language about the two generals.
Wei, a senior party and PLA leader, had “a collapse of faith and a loss of loyalty” and “seriously polluted the political ecosystem of the PLA”. Meanwhile, Li had “abandoned the original mission and lost the principles of the party” and seriously contaminated the PLA’s military equipment industry.
Their actions “betrayed the trust of the party’s central leadership and the CMC … and caused great damage to the party’s cause, national defence and the construction of the PLA, as well as to the image of the senior leading cadres”, it said.
“It was of an extremely serious nature, with an extremely bad impact and extremely great harm,” the report said.
Li spent decades in the equipment department, which oversees military procurement.
Wei took the helm of the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps in 2012 and continued to lead this key part of the country’s nuclear arsenal after it was restructured to become the rocket force in 2015.
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