The door of the Chinese Ministry of Defense is closing so tightly that no one seems to be able to keep up anymore, writes Asian correspondent Mika Hentunen.
Mika HentunenAsian correspondent
BEIJING New corruption investigation, new defense minister.
This seems to have become the way China changes its key ministers. The pace at which exchanges are made is fast.
It is not yet known whether he has disappeared from the public eye in recent days Dong Jun really getting sidetracked. However, the probability of displacement is considered high.
According to Western press reports, Dong has been the subject of a corruption investigation.
Rooting out bribery is the responsibility of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping a key goal for the implementation of “national recruitment”. In Xi’s opinion, only an estranged China can fulfill its historical mission in this century. It is to take the lead in the world economically, politically and militarily.
However, the door in China’s various ministries, especially in the Ministry of Defense, which manages the armed forces, is so fierce that one has to wonder about Xi’s real intentions.
Dong’s predecessor Li Shangfu was fired after only seven months on the job. His predecessor Wei Fenghe was at his post for more than four years, but suddenly disappeared from the public eye.
It was unclear for a long time whether Wei was even alive. Last summer it was heard that he is the subject of a corruption investigation and has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party.
The same happened to Li Shangfu. Both are now out of Chinese politics for good.
The same hard fate has been experienced by at least nine of the highest-ranking generals of the Chinese People’s Army and a large number of leaders of the defense administration and industry.
It seems that corruption is Xi’s keyword when he wants to make any changes.
In the fight against corruption, charges have been brought against approximately three million officials. Otherwise, at least 2.7 million people have been fired.
Over the past two years, the corruption investigation has focused on China’s armed forces and defense industry.
There is no public debate in China. Hundreds of thousands of people work to clean up the media and suppress discussions on social media that are unpleasant for the administration.
Therefore, no one knows for sure what is really happening in Beijing’s defense circles and what kind of power struggle is going on in them.
Does the 71-year-old Xi possibly feel threatened?
It wouldn’t be surprising if you knew.
Xi launched a major reform of the armed forces in 2015, three years after coming to power.
The rigid had to be made flexible. In Xi’s opinion, the Chinese officers did not know how to make decisions or act in unexpected situations. To put it in Finnish, he thought the army was boring.
Since then, the output has grown at a dizzying pace.
Admiral Dong previously headed the Chinese Navy. During his period, they became the most powerful in the world in terms of the number and power of battleships. The Air Force is estimated to be the third most destructive in the world.
China is reportedly growing all its weapons, including space forces, and its nuclear stockpile faster than any other country.
There is no complete clarity on the matterbecause there are different interpretations of China’s defense allocations.
China itself states its defense budget as 235-285 billion dollars per year. The US Department of Defense and several international research institutes estimate the actual size of the budget to be 2-3 times larger.
By comparison, the US defense budget for 2023 was $916 billion.
The central and scary thing is, that in China everything is practically at the mercy of Xi. He gets his way.
Xi has never hesitated to fire his political opponents. Recently, even more people who have experienced a hard fate have been his close associates.
Dong’s predecessors were considered Xi’s favorites, rising to become defense ministers in the Communist Party career pipeline ahead of others.
If the information in the Financial Times newspaper and other Western media is correct, Dong has now suffered the same fate that befell them.