After months of heated speculation and official hesitation, China has now announced that its two former defense ministers, who vanished from public view last year, were being investigated for corruption.
Their rapid demise has uncovered deep-rooted alleged deception in critical areas of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s military modernization effort, despite his decade-long anti-graft campaign, raising concerns about the country’s battle capability at a time of heightened geopolitical tension.
Li Shangfu, who was fired as defense minister in October after only seven months on the job, and Wei Fenghe, who served from 2018 to 2023, were expelled from the ruling Communist Party as a result of the investigations, with both cases being turned over to military prosecutors for prosecution, state media reported Thursday.
The two are the most prominent figures to fall in a major purge of China’s defense establishment that began last summer and has resulted in the removal of more than a dozen top generals and executives from the military-industrial complex.
The turbulence in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) comes as leader Xi Jinping seeks to strengthen China’s military forces, making them more combat-ready and assertive in enforcing its disputed territorial claims in the area.
Former defense ministers Li and Wei frequently set a severe tone in front of the world’s senior military commanders. At subsequent regional security forums, the two generals warned that the Chinese military will battle “at all costs” if anybody attempts to “split” self-governing Taiwan from China.
