(Bloomberg) -- China has abruptly suspended Miao Hua from the nation’s apex military body led by President Xi Jinping, ramping up a graft probe that’s roiling the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army.
The top official overseeing political loyalty in the armed forces is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said Thursday at a regular briefing in Beijing. For the ruling Communist Party, that language typically refers to a graft probe.
The six-man Central Military Commission is the armed force’s premier decision-making body, and one of the most powerful institutions in China. Under Xi, there are two vice chairmen serving as military leaders and three other members including Miao — who is seen as a close ally of China’s top leader.
“The latest probe hints at a deeper, stickier systemic issue at the PLA, that even Xi, with all the power that he has centralized, finds a challenge to root out,” said Dylan Loh, assistant professor of politics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Xi’s government has unseated more than a dozen senior military figures since launching a corruption investigation last summer into hardware purchases going back to 2017. That probe resulted in the removal of China’s last two defense ministers from the Communist Party, as well as the ouster of several officials with ties to the secretive Rocket Force that oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Miao, as director of the PLA’s political work, is responsible for instilling loyalty in the armed forces, a role that’s become increasingly important as Xi tightens control of the military. The sudden downfall of China’s fifth-ranked military official comes just months after former Defense Minister Li Shangfu was ousted from the ruling party for graft.
While neither Li or Miao had roles directly commanding China’s armed forces, both were prominent figures and their fall from grace raises questions about Xi’s selection process. The ongoing purge of top officials also creates an impression of turmoil within the PLA just as Xi ramps up pressure on self-ruled Taiwan with a spate of drills encircling the island.
The last time two CMC members were probed in such short succession was in 2017, when then political commissar Zhang Yang and then chief of staff Fang Fenghui were investigated. Zhang killed himself during that investigation, and was subsequently kicked out of the party.
Fang had been one of China’s most visible officers — accompanying Xi to his first meeting with US President Donald Trump in Florida in April 2017 — and was positioned by age and rank to rise further.
The Chinese government made Miao’s probe public one day after a media report alleged that newly appointed Defense Minister Dong Jun was being investigated. “The rumor-mongers are ill-intentioned,” Wu said at the briefing. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction with such slanderous behavior,” he added, calling such claims “pure fabrication.”
Xi Loyalist
Miao rose through the ranks of political officers in the PLA, non-combat posts charged with instilling party discipline and ensuring loyalty to the military. Before being promoted to the CMC he served as political commissar of the PLA Navy from 2014 to 2017.
A Fujian native, Miao overlapped in the south-east province with Xi in the late 1990s, where the future Chinese leader worked as a local deputy party chief. His promotion to the CMC was attributed to Xi’s own political success, as he swiftly rose under the Chinese leader’s patronage.
“It appears the CMC Chairman’s trust in another of his subordinates has been misplaced,” said James Char, assistant professor of the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “Clearly Xi himself had not anticipated the scale of China’s military malfeasance and how pervasive corruption exists among PLA elites.”
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