“Speculations,” responded Wednesday, November 27, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, to information from Financial Times, that the Chinese defense minister is being investigated for corruption. The British newspaper cites current and former US officials, all familiar with the matter, and says that Minister Dong Jun “is under wider investigation to expose corruption in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) )”. If the information is confirmed, Dong Jun would be the third consecutive Chinese defense minister to be investigated for corruption.
A former navy commander, Dong Jun was appointed defense minister in December 2023 after the sudden ousting of his predecessor Li Shangfu, just seven months after taking office. Already at the time, this is the Financial Times which reported that “U.S. officials suspected Li was under investigation for corruption.” Li Shangfu was subsequently expelled from the Chinese Communist Party, and accused of having “received huge sums of money”, according to state television. He has not been seen in public since. His own predecessor, Wei Fenghe, also suspected of corruption, was also removed from the party.
Extensive investigation into the People’s Liberation Army
Today, the sources of Financial Times claim that Xi Jinping ordered “a wave of investigations within the PLA”, which would have led to the indictment of current Defense Minister Dong Jun. “The nature of the corruption accusations against him is unclear,” the newspaper said. This all comes after an event which did not work in favor of Dong Jun on the international scene. A few days after a meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum – a meeting during which the heads of state both reaffirmed their countries’ desire to maintain direct military communications – Dong Jun recently refused to meet the American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who was present at the same time as him in Laos.
According to a former high-level CIA analyst in China, Christopher Johnson, this latest development is likely to cause concern over the way China chooses its defense ministers. “Xi Jinping’s military officials assured him that the selection process was flawless after a four-month search. So Xi Jinging must ask himself which sector of the PLA is not corrupt.” “It’s a shock… We could imagine that they were going to be particularly vigilant in appointing someone impeccable to this position,” also explains to AFP Dylan Loh, assistant professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Since coming to power, a little over ten years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a vast campaign to crack down on corruption among civil servants, which has extended to the army. His detractors believe that it serves to eliminate his rivals on the political level. In early November, the leader ordered the military to “investigate and remedy corruption and unhealthy tendencies among officers and soldiers.”
When Xi Jinping no longer trusts his army
The strengthening of this campaign is partly motivated by fears that corruption will affect the Chinese military’s ability to fight a war. According to the Financial Times“U.S. military officers and officials have suggested that the investigations into the PLA undermine Xi Jinping’s confidence in his military and raise questions about his ability to invade Taiwan by 2027 – a goal set by the Chinese president “.
At the heart of the storm is Rocket Force, a top-secret department responsible for China’s arsenal of conventional and nuclear strategic missiles. In July, one of its senior officials, Sun Jinming, was also targeted by an investigation for corruption. According to the official New China news agency, he was expelled from the Party for “serious violations of Party discipline and laws”, a phrase commonly used to refer to acts of corruption. At least two other high-ranking officers linked to the same unit were also fired for corruption. Sun Jinming “probably had his hands on tens of billions of dollars in public contracts each year,” Victor Shih, a political expert specializing in the Chinese ruling elite, told AFP. “Competition for top positions is so fierce that there could be mutual accusations between officers, leading to endless cycles of arrests, new appointments and accusations,” the analyst concludes.