Is China’s military ready? Dramatic fall of two defense ministers raises questions

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After months of intense speculation and official reluctance, China has finally confirmed that its two former defense ministers, who disappeared from public view last year, are under investigation for corruption.

Their spectacular fall exposed deep alleged deceptions in key areas of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s military modernization policy, despite his decade-long war on corruption, raising questions about the country’s combat readiness at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Li Shangfu, who was harshly ousted as defense minister in October after just seven months in the post, and Wei Fenghe, who served from 2018 to 2023, were expelled from the ruling Communist Party following the investigations, with both cases handed over to military prosecutors for indictment, state media reported Thursday.

The two men are the biggest heads to fall in the sweeping purge of China’s defense establishment since last summer, which has brought down more than a dozen top generals and executives in the military-industrial complex.

The unrest in the upper ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) comes as leader Xi Jinping seeks to make China’s armed forces stronger, more combat-ready and more aggressive in asserting its contested territorial claims in the region.

At the height of their careers, former defense ministers Li and Wei often struck a tough tone in front of the world’s top military leaders. At successive regional security forums, both generals warned that the Chinese military would fight “at all costs” if anyone dared to “split” self-ruled Taiwan from China. They also fired thinly veiled shots at the United States, vowing to fight “hegemony” in the disputed South China Sea.

Both promoted under Xi, their dismissals come despite the Chinese leader’s more than decade-long anti-corruption campaign, highlighting the difficulties of preventing corruption at the highest levels of the military, analysts say.

While Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has had some success, the lack of adequate civilian oversight and an independent legal system means the PLA relies on its internal investigators for supervision, said James Char, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “It’s difficult, so corruption will definitely continue,” he said.

Corruption in arms procurement

As part of Xi’s ambition to transform the PLA into a “world-class” fighting force, China has invested billions of dollars in purchasing and modernizing equipment. Xi has also established the Rocket Force, an elite branch overseeing the country’s expanding arsenal of nuclear and ballistic missiles.

Most of the generals fired or disappeared without explanation last year were linked to Rocket Force or military outfits, including Li and Wei.

Before becoming defense minister, Li headed the PLA’s equipment development department for five years. An engineer by training, the 66-year-old spent decades launching rockets and satellites in southwest China before being promoted to the PLA headquarters to handle military equipment procurement.

Wei, 70, was the first commander of the Rocket Force. In late 2015, Xi Jinping elevated the force to a separate service, emerging from the PLA’s former missile arm, the Second Artillery Corps, where Wei had worked for decades. Wei’s two successors as Rocket Force commanders were also purged.

The allegations against Li presented in the announcement by the 24-member Politburo clearly indicate corruption in arms procurement.

In addition to accepting and giving bribes and abusing his power, Li was also accused of “seriously polluting the political environment and industrial practices of the military equipment sector,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Joel Wuthnow, a senior fellow at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, said the carefully worded phrase indicates collusion between state-owned companies that make weapons and the PLA’s procurement system.

“We know there is some collusion, but it is not certain – and the CCP would not admit it – whether the critical weapons are actually substandard or unreliable,” Wuthnow said. “If this were proven, it would be even more serious for Xi, because he would have doubts not only about ethics, but also about actual military preparedness. »

Char, the analyst, said problems in the PLA’s supply system have existed for many years.

In 2018, a study by the China Naval Engineering University, the Navy Equipment Procurement Center and the Audit Office of the Central Military Commission had already analyzed bid-rigging practices in the PLA’s equipment procurement and called for an improvement in the bidding system.

“These procurement and acquisition issues raised questions about the quality of equipment the PLA had purchased previously. How well do they actually work on the ground? I think it’s a question that can be debated,” Char said.

In a sign that China’s highest military authorities may be concerned about the quality of their equipment, General He Weidong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which oversees the armed forces, pledged in March to crack down against “false combat capabilities” within the military, Char noted.

“His comment was quickly banned from public view thereafter. I think that says a lot about the actual combat capabilities of the equipment,” Char said.

“I lost confidence”

Li and Wei are the most senior military officials felled in six years by Xi’s relentless anti-corruption campaign.

Since coming to power in 2012, the Chinese leader has made the fight against corruption and disloyalty a hallmark of his regime, and he has toppled powerful generals previously considered untouchable.

In the early years of his first term, Xi claimed his two highest positions in the military, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both former vice-chairmen of the CMC. Xu later died of cancer and Guo was sentenced to life in prison for corruption.

In some ways, Wuthnow said, the latest corruption scandal surrounding the two former defense ministers is “even worse for Xi” than the Xu and Guo cases a decade ago.

“At the time, we could tell Xi was cleaning house,” he said, noting that Xu and Guo were appointed to the CMC under former leader Jiang Zemin. But Wei and Li were promoted under Xi.

“The cases of Wei and Li show that Xi’s own selection processes and his much-vaunted anti-corruption campaign over the past decade have failed to prevent corruption at the top of the system,” Wuthnow said.

“I think this shows once again that Xi has lost confidence in the people he has appointed. »

Wei was promoted to general just over a week after Xi Jinping took over as party leader. Li was promoted to lieutenant general, and then general again, three years later.

According to the Politburo statement, Li and Guo’s actions “betrayed the trust and responsibility” placed in them by the senior leadership of the party and the military. Li “betrayed the party’s founding aspirations and principles” and Guo was accused of “collapse of faith and loss of loyalty”, according to CCTV.

“Xi must feel personally betrayed by this high-level corruption,” wrote Bill Bishop, a China watcher and author of the Sinocism newsletter.

But Xi remains determined to root out corruption and disloyalty. Last month, he summoned top military brass for a political work conference in Yan’an, a sacred site of the Chinese Communist Revolution in party history, calling for deepening political rectification within the party. PLA.

“The barrel of the gun should always be in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the party,” Xi told the PLA elites. “Rigor is clearly required to…achieve combat effectiveness.” There should be no place in the military for corrupt elements to hide.

Char, the PLA observer in Singapore, said that in the long run, Xi’s cleaning up of the military and its supply system is a good sign for China’s combat capabilities.

“Issues are being resolved as they come, and there will always be an ongoing review of how Xi Jinping can actually upgrade the PLA to realize his dream of modernizing the PLA by 2035.”

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