China’s missile force appears to be suspected of corruption. An investigation is underway against senior officers of the unit responsible for nuclear weapons. Xi Jinping wants total loyalty from the troops.
Beijing/Munich – China’s elite missile force is rumbling. Two top commanders have disappeared from the scene, and investigations are underway against other executives. When two new commanders were presented recently, there was no indication of the disappeared predecessors. Analyzes and rumors see the disclosure of military secrets or corruption investigations as the reason – or even a connection to the case of the disappeared ex-Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Even with Qin, some sense espionage in the game. The recent death of a former missile force commander also fueled the rumor mill as the cause of death was not communicated.
The incidents do not involve some obscure force. The People’s Liberation Army Missile Force is one of its most important units. They are, among other things, the custodians of China’s nuclear arsenal and the country’s conventional ballistic missiles. The unit is responsible for land-based nuclear deterrence and is also considered the core of a possible military campaign against Taiwan.
The army in China does not serve the state, but first and foremost the party. The Communist Party’s Central Military Commission governs the military. Its chairman is none other than state and party leader Xi Jinping. And Xi seems unsure of the loyalty and integrity of the armed forces at this time.
army and corruption
For some time now, a large-scale campaign against corruption in the People’s Liberation Army has been running again. And this time the investigators are apparently particularly targeting the elite missile forces. Interestingly, the two newcomers – commander General Wang Houbin and senior political commissar General Xu Xisheng – come from very different branches of the military, namely the Navy and the Air Force. Both have no experience with rocketry. Which means no one within the Missile Force was eligible – or trusted enough – for promotion. “It shows that something is very, very fishy there,” says Joel Wuthnow from the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University in Washington.
The British Financial Times quoted unnamed analysts as believing that Beijing seconded the new commanders from other units to disrupt corrupt networks formed among the unit’s missing commanders.
The missing commander, named Li Yuanchao, has risen through the traditional ladder for over 40 years and has long been in the missile force, which he led since January 2022, Wuthnow said. The fact that “someone with his background and his obvious competence” was sawed off points to a bigger issue. Especially since the entire leadership team of the unit was targeted by the investigators.
Xi Jinping has been fighting corruption in the military for the past ten years
Immediately after taking power in 2012, Xi made fighting corruption in the military, which was then very brazen, a top priority. At that time, the People’s Liberation Army ruled over a huge network of companies. The military-industrial complex sprawled far into the civilian economy; Bribes flowed everywhere. In 2014, two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Generals Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, fell over corruption allegations. Both were also prosecuted. The case was part of a broader purge aimed at restoring party control over the armed forces.
But now it seems that Xi has failed to gain absolute control. And so he sent out the corruption investigators again. There are indications of misconduct in the most sensitive area of the military, of all people, among the rulers of the nuclear arsenal. Xi only separated the missile force from the artillery corps in 2015 to elevate its status. “The missile force is the core of our national strategic deterrent,” he said at the time.
China’s Missile Forces: Huge Arsenal Expansion
Since then, China’s missile arsenal has grown tremendously. The number of ICBMs in the country is growing rapidly, as is the number of nuclear warheads. In its current annual report, the Stockholm peace research institute SIPRI estimates the number of nuclear warheads in the People’s Republic at 410 in January 2023, compared to 350 a year earlier. The unit builds in the desert areas of Northwest China According to US researchers, hundreds of missile silos. “They build a lot. You buy a lot of things. So there are opportunities for corruption,” says Wuthnow.
Almost all of the high-ranking generals in the missile force had, according to a Hong Kong report South China Morning Post a good reputation before being promoted to the top. “They became immoral after moving to the headquarters in Beijing. This gave them more chances to get in touch with arms companies,” the paper quoted an anonymous source as saying. Gifts of money against orders, it would be the usual game of corruption.
But apparently the leadership around Xi Jinping has had enough. The Central Military Commission called for an “early warning mechanism on military integrity risks” in July and announced an investigation into corruption in equipment procurement going back to 2017. In one tweet Wuthnow also referred to a special member of the missile force: Zhang Shengmin, who, like Xi Jinping, is a member of the Central Military Commission and is responsible for investigating corruption. “Just imagine what Zhang knows.” The man should be feared.
#Corruption #Chinas #military #purges #missile #force