The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday (27) expelled former Defense Minister Li Shangfu from the party, who was removed from his post last year without explanation and is now accused of alleged corruption crimes.
According to state media reports, Li was expelled for “serious violations of party discipline and the law.” With the process, he will also lose his seat in the National People’s Assembly (China’s facade Legislative Power), the Political Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee decided today.
The announcement comes after a year of secrecy by the Chinese regime on this issue, since, although Li’s removal from the post of minister was announced in October last year, the former minister had already been out of public view for more than two months, which led to abundant speculation.
The Communist Party revealed on Thursday that an investigation into Li was opened on August 31 last year, a process in which it was concluded that the former minister “violated political discipline” by seeking “benefits through personal agreements for himself and to third parties”.
“He abused his position to obtain benefits for others, accepting large sums of money and valuable goods in exchange and was also found to have offered money to others to obtain benefits,” detailed the party that leads the Asian country.
As such, Li will be charged with both accepting and offering bribes, as well as “seriously contaminating the political environment of the military equipment sector and the ethics of important industries.”
“Their violations of discipline and law have caused enormous damage to the cause of the party, the development of national defense and the armed forces, and the image of high-ranking officials,” the top leadership of the Communist Party stressed.
In addition to Li, his predecessor in charge of the department, Wei Fenghe, was also expelled. The communists also accuse Wei of being involved in corruption.
The expulsions, which join those of nine other generals in recent months, will be made official during the third plenary session of the party’s Central Committee in mid-July.
The Army’s prosecutorial bodies will be responsible for the trial of Li, who was also expelled from the military ranks and lost his rank of general.
A week ago, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping demanded “absolute loyalty” to the Communist Party from the People’s Liberation Army and stressed during a working meeting that “there can be no place for corruption.”
“We must make it clear that weapons must always be in the hands of those who are loyal to the Party, whom we can trust. And we must make it clear that there is no place for any corrupt element in the military,” Xi said at an event in Shaanxi province.
The Communist Party punished 610,000 officials last year, a record number that highlights Xi’s perennial campaign against corruption, which cemented his power at the head of the country during the party’s congress held in 2022.
Last year, Xi called for the fight against corruption to be redoubled, which, according to the president, achieved “a crushing victory”, although he predicted more punishments because “the situation is still serious”.
The current campaign targets sectors as diverse as finance, tobacco and pharmaceuticals, among others, and follows one launched in 2012, which was accompanied by increased repression, censorship and suspicions that the accusations were part of a ploy to suppress opponents.
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