Xi’s purge and corruption in the PLA
xi’s purge AND corruption in the pla
WRITTEN BY LYLE J. MORRIS
5 March 2024
A rash of recent removals of senior officials within the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have raised questions about the depth of corruption in the world’s largest military. The purge, as some have called it, comes amid news of recent US intelligence leaks that suggest that corruption is so widespread in the PLA that Chinese President Xi Jinping would be less likely to contemplate military action in the years ahead.
These developments have prompted a debate in the China-watching community over whether corruption in the PLA is affecting readiness and morale.
Xi’s corruption purge
On 29 December 2023, and again on 27 February 2024, China’s top lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), removed senior military officers from the national legislative body. In total, three generals, five lieutenant generals, and the two commanders were dismissed. Most served in the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) — an arm of the PLA overseeing China’s conventional and nuclear missile programme — and the Equipment Development Department (EDD). The only non-EDD and PLARF officer who was removed was Gen. Ding Laihang, the former Commander of the PLA Air Force until September 2021.
The removal in December came a few days after the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory group under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), revoked the memberships of three senior leaders of Chinese military-industrial state-owned enterprises (SOEs): Liu Shiquan, chair of weapons manufacturer China North Industries Group, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp chair Wu Yansheng, and China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp executive Wang Changqing.
Corruption in China’s military is not a case of a “few bad apples”. Rather, it is indicative of a PLA that has systemic problems with corruption whereby kickbacks and buying and selling of promotions have been standard practice for decades.
The demotions came on the heels of broader upheaval within the ranks of China’s military and foreign policy establishment. In the summer of 2023, Xi removed his Defence Minister, Li Shangfu, and foreign minister, Qin Gang, for disciplinary and national security violations — a term typically associated with acts of corruption or leaking of sensitive military information.
There were also rumours that Wu Guohua, the deputy commander of the PLARF, had disappeared earlier that summer, possibly due to suicide.
These high-profile removals have little precedent in PRC history. While the EDD (formerly the General Armaments Department) has long been rumoured to be a hotbed of corruption, surprisingly few top leaders have been detained or removed for corruption. The last major scandal in the EDD was in 2015, when Major General Li Mingquan was removed from his post as the head of the General Equipment Support Department of the General Armaments Department.
However, in July 2023, the CCP re-launched an investigation into the EDD and PLA procurement process dating back to October 2017, suggesting that concern was growing over graft in the EDD. The removed defence minister Li Shangfu ran the EDD from 2017 to October 2022.
But the removal of the nine senior PLARF leaders, along with the stripping of senior SOE leaders and the sacking of the foreign and defence minister, suggests all is not well in the PLA and within the Chinese military-industrial complex. In reality, the removals speak to deep systematic issues in the upper echelons of the PLA.
A reminder from history
One would have to go back to the early 1970s and the Lin Biao incident to find a comparable period of upheaval in the PLA. A declassified CIA intelligence report on the incident sheds light on the circumstances that led to an alleged coup attempt by Lin and his subsequent death during a plane ride over Inner Mongolia under suspicious circumstances.
While the current purge may not rise to that level of political upheaval, the deep suspicion and lack of trust between Mao and his military leaders may hold lessons for current events in China.
The seeds of the Lin Biao incident were sown in 1969, at the height of the Sino-Soviet border conflict. The conflict stands as one of the most acute crises in the Cold War era, and saw the two nuclear-armed states come close to the brink of war. As Chinese leaders became increasingly concerned about the possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack on China, Mao ordered his top leaders to disperse throughout China and undertook a number of war preparations in mid-October. With China’s leadership geographically dispersed, Lin Biao, the top military leader at the time, took what he believed was broad latitude for war planning from Mao and issued “Directive 1” and “2”. Directive 2 was an order to “prepare to launch China’s nuclear weapons at any time”. When this order got back to Mao, he was reportedly furious, believing Lin usurped Mao’s authority. The events of 1969 laid the groundwork of suspicion that led Mao to believe that Lin was intent on undermining Mao’s power and rule, ultimately leading to the plane crash of Lin under suspicious circumstances.
History as prologue
Corruption exists in many forms in militaries around the world. It is impossible to completely root out corruption in the PLA, or, for that matter, in any large institution with less developed checks and balances and a rule of law to naturally weed out endemic corruption. However, the PLA has a unique history of corruption dating back to its founding that is very difficult to eradicate.
For example, scholars such as James Mulvenon have written extensively about the vast business enterprises that existed within the PLA from the late 1970s to the late 1980s that, while long abolished, still linger to this day.
They are a singular power structure within a monopolistic governance structure of the CCP. You can selectively remove bad actors whose corrupt practices become too large to ignore, but you can never completely root them out. In other words, corruption is part of “doing business” in the PLA to a much greater extent than most other military organisations around the world, where the rule of law and checks and balances can serve to expose major acts of nepotism and corruption.
Viewed from this lens, therefore, it is safe to say that corruption in China’s military is not a case of a “few bad apples”. Rather, it is indicative of a PLA that has systemic problems with corruption whereby kickbacks and buying and selling of promotions have been standard practice for decades.
Whether this recent purge is due to corruption alone, or other issues, such as the leaking of sensitive military information, is a question we may never know with certainty. But given the seniority of officers taken down over “discipline and national security violations”, it is safe to assume that corruption was an element that led to their downfall.
Whether or not such corrupt practices will materially affect military readiness depends on the gravity of graft that led to the removal of so many senior PLA officers. If there was major misuse of funds within the military procurement system, this may have an effect on weapons systems cycles and integration of those systems within the PLA.
Moreover, if the downfall of PLARF commander Li Yuchao and his subordinates is related to intel leaks, as some reports have suggested, that suggests trouble within China’s nuclear forces — a key piece of Xi’s military modernisation drive. Some of the intel leaks reportedly include the “blueprints” of China’s nuclear strategy and posture to the United States. If there is any shred of truth in these rumours, that would constitute a big setback for China’s nuclear programme and raise questions about the political reliability of senior PLA leadership in charge of the nuclear forces.
The heart of the matter
This is not to suggest that Xi is not trying hard to reverse endemic corruption in the PLA. The military reforms he instituted in 2015 included a revamped “discipline and inspection” committee meant to empower Xi’s senior technocrats with the authority to pursue instances of corruption more comprehensively.
Recent reports hint at additional internal “whistle-blower” mechanisms that Xi has put in place to encourage PLA personnel to report corruption within the ranks. While such initiatives may expose more cases of graft, they will likely not succeed in rooting out corruption at a systematic level.
Corruption is baked into the system of governance in China. Given these dynamics, which have been a feature of China’s military bureaucracy for decades, the recent purge will likely not greatly influence the overall trajectory of PLA modernisation or combat effectiveness.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Lyle J. Morris is Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy and National Security at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Prior to joining ASPI, Lyle was a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation leading projects on Chinese military modernization and Asia-Pacific security from 2011-2022. Image credit: Flickr/Johnathan Nightingale.