China’s defence minister placed under investigation for corruption

BEIJING: China defence minister Dong Jun has been placed under investigation as part of a wide-ranging anti-corruption probe that has roiled the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Dong is the third consecutive serving or former Chinese defence minister to be investigated for alleged corruption, the FT reported, citing current and former US officials.

China’s foreign and defence ministries did not immediately reply to Reuters requests for comment.

China’s military has undergone a sweeping anti-corruption purge since last year, with at least nine PLA generals and a handful of defence industry executives removed from the national legislative body to date.

Dong, a former PLA Navy chief, was appointed defence minister in December 2023. His predecessor, Li Shangfu, was removed after seven months into the job.

Dong last week declined to meet US defence secretary Lloyd Austin during a meeting of defence ministers in Laos citing US actions over Taiwan, a move the Pentagon chief said on Wednesday was unfortunate.

As defence minister, Dong is responsible for China’s military diplomacy with other nations. He oversaw a recent thaw in US-China military-to-military ties, with both nations holding theatre-level commander talks for the first time in September.

But he was not promoted to the six-member Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest-level military body, during a major Communist Party plenum earlier this year, where personnel reshuffles would normally be announced.

China’s defence minister has traditionally been a member of both the CMC, which is headed by Chinese president Xi Jinping, and the State Council, China’s cabinet-level executive body.

Dong was not appointed to the State Council either during a government reshuffle in March.

“Frankly nothing would surprise me anymore,” said Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown University and former US intelligence analyst.

“The history with these investigations in the PLA are that once the string of corruption is pulled many other threads are revealed and the sweater unravels.”

Dong’s two immediate predecessors, Li and Wei Fenghe, were expelled from the Communist Party in June for “serious violations of discipline”, a euphemism for corruption.

A Communist Party statement at the time said the pair “betrayed the trust of the party and the Central Military Commission, seriously polluted the political environment of the military, and caused great damage to the image of its senior leaders”.

The pair were also found to have received huge sums of money in bribes and “sought personnel benefits” for others, the statement said.

Reuters exclusively reported last year that Li was under investigation for suspected corruption in military procurement.

Wei had disappeared from public view after he was replaced in March 2023 during a planned cabinet reshuffle. Wei was head of the strategic People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force from 2015-17.

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