Corruption - Military
Graft in the armed forces could undermine their ability on the battlefield. It greatly affects the military's image and hinders the development of national defense. The number and seniority of officers detained or arrested for corruption raised questions about the combat potential of a military that had not fought a war in five decades.
China's military's has been a focus of Xi's ongoing anti-graft crackdown. Corruption has long been considered rife within the PLA, with top generals reported to have accumulated vast wealth. The scale of the graft fell afoul of Xi's objective of modernizing the military Critics say Xi's anti-graft campaign is partly a cover to purge the military and Communist Party to consolidate control.
The corruption of the CCP military ranks first in the world. The Chinese military has indeed become corrupted to the point of worrying about whether the PLA is ready to fight. The facts of corruption at the top of the Chinese military and the group corruption of hundreds of generals are even more horrifying. In January 2013, Transparency International, an international anti-corruption organization, listed the Chinese People's Liberation Army as a "high risk level" of corruption. The corruption of the Chinese military ranks as the highest of any military in the world.
In 2012, Liu Mingfu, a former professor at China's National Defense University, warned in a book titled "Why the PLA Can Win" that corruption and corruption in the Chinese military were posing a greater threat to China. "As an army that hasn't fought for 30 years, the People's Liberation Army has developed to a stage where the biggest danger and number one enemy is corruption." In an interview in 2012, Liu Mingfu expressed his concern that the army's anti-corruption campaign would be unfavorable, " The power of anti-corruption is not as great as that of corruption, the energy of those who engage in corruption is greater than that of anti-corruption, and those who are good at corruption will do better.”
According to reports, the Chinese military was so corrupt under Jiang Zemin that senior Chinese military officials even dispatched warships overseas to smuggle home appliances and cars. Jiang Zemin, who is also the chairman of the Military Commission, once ordered the military to stop doing business, but was resisted by the military, or changed its name and continued to do business in disguise. In September 1998, then Premier Zhu Rongji revealed at the China Anti-Smuggling Work Conference that in those years, 800 billion yuan was smuggled every year, and the military accounted for at least 500 billion yuan.
A pro-Beijing Duowei quoted and analyzed that the Chinese military has too many relationships with interest groups in doing business, and it is difficult to check the "underlying countermeasures" in the actual investigation and punishment. It remains to be seen whether the Chinese military can completely ban business in half a year.
Corruption can be seen everywhere in the Chinese army, from being a soldier, to being promoted to another job, to changing jobs, to border guards smuggling arms, smuggling products, and guarding mines. Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong have been in charge of the army for nearly 20 years. Corruption is rampant throughout the army, and the army is almost rotten.
Since Xi Jinping took office, he has repeatedly warned about the dangers of Communist Party corruption. In many public and private speeches, Xi Jinping emphasized that if the corruption problem is not addressed, the party and the country will be destroyed. In a talk he gave after taking office in late 2012, he reminded Communist Party cadres with the adage that “things must rot first, and then insects grow.”
Can Xi Jinping complete the military reform as he wishes and turn the PLA into the war-fighting army he hopes? Very doubtful, why? Because the Chinese army is hard to return, the World Daily editorial believes that its corruption and stubborn disease, it is not easy to completely eradicate it under Xi Jinping's strong anti-corruption. The CCP is dominated by a single party and lacks an effective political system for supervision. It is difficult to completely eradicate military corruption.
In early April 2017, the 55-episode Beijing anti-corruption TV series "In the Name of the People" premiered on Hunan Satellite TV. Zhou Meisen, the screenwriter of this TV series, wrote the script at the request of the Film and Television Center of the Supreme Procuratorate.
When the TV started airing, Zhou Meisen said in an interview with mainland media: "Look at how serious the corruption is now . It's so serious that you can't even talk about it. They say that it's too dark, and the military chief can sell the car as soon as he exercises. It was sold out (scrapped), gasoline was sold, 10 rounds of artillery shells were fired, and 100 rounds of shells were fired in the report, embezzling military funds. Political commissars and other cadres sold officials, starting from the squad leader and selling them all the way to the general. I didn’t believe it at the time. Now, believe it! More than 140 generals."
He also said that since the CCP launched the Nanchang riot on August 1, 1927, “all the wars added together, few generals were wiped out by the enemy. The army was wiped out. How terrible? Do you think they can last for a long time? Can they play for a long time? The party and the country will inevitably be destroyed. How can they not be destroyed? There is no war. Why should the official here work for you? It's terrible."
Since Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign in 2013, more than 160 generals have been investigated. This number exceeds the sum of the generals who fell in the CCP's "civil war, foreign war, and Cultural Revolution" in a century. Seven generals had been sacked. They are: Xu Caihou, former member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, former member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and former director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission Zhang Yang, Fang Fenghui, former chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, Wang Jianping, former deputy chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission and former commander of the Armed Police Force, Tian Xiusi, former political commissar of the Air Force, and Wang Xibin, former president of the National Defense University.
Guo Boxiong became the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission at the First Plenary Session of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002, Xu Caihou became the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee in 2004, and Guo was elected two years earlier than Xu. In this way, in the position of vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo has more chances to sell official ranks and positions than Xu for two years.
From 2013 to 2017, Xi Jinping relied on the then member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to fight corruption. Many high-ranking CCP officials who are greedy for money and lecherous are very afraid, and some of the sinners prefer to commit suicide. General Liu Yazhou said that he asked people to count, from 2015 to July 6, 2016, "more than 30 people have committed suicide in the army". If the previous and subsequent ones are added, there may be more officers who committed suicide.
The corruption problems of Guo and Xu are enough to shock the whole of China and the whole world. However, they are not yet the most corrupt in the military. On August 18, 2018, Liu Yuan, the son of former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi, said in an interview with a reporter from the Beijing News that "Zhang Yang's problem is more serious than Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou." So, is Zhang Yang the "most" corrupt person in the CCP military? In fact, it's not that much. He is only the director of the General Political Department of the Central Military Commission, the director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission after the military reform.
The general background of these seven generals is Jiang Zemin , the former chairman of the Central Military Commission . It was Jiang Shengba who reused Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, and indulged Xu and Guo to engage in corruption, which caused the entire army to become a "hypermarket" for buying and selling official ranks and positions.
On January 9, 2015, a person who signed the "informed cadre of the general government" broke the news overseas that when Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong served as vice-chairmen of the Military Commission, "the whole army ran up and down to buy officials, and thousands of troops (referring to military cadres) had become a common practice. The price of 10 million yuan) and one million heroic divisions (referring to the price of 1 million yuan for teachers and cadres) have become well-known unspoken rules, my mind is all devoted to entertaining guests and gifts, engaging in relationships and gaining votes."
On July 6, 2016, Liu Yazhou, the then political commissar of the National Defense University, said at a meeting: "In the past ten years (that is, the ten years in which Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou dominated the Central Military Commission), we are all in the army. What has the army become? We are not facing the battlefield, we are facing the market, not even the market, we are facing a supermarket, everything has a price, and everything can be priced. Under their control, the army has become a There is a pool of mud, and this mud is not because the enemy is stuck in and can’t pull it out, but we ourselves are stuck in and can’t pull out.”
On 15 August 2015, the article "The Sigh of a "Red Second Generation" was published online in mainland China, which attracted widespread attention. The author is said to be Deng Luyan, the eldest son of Deng Keming, the former deputy commander of the Fuzhou Military Region and the eldest son of Deng Keming, a major general when the CCP was founded. At the beginning of the article, it wrote: "Corruption in the military is very serious. In terms of making money, it will only be darker, more violent, and more rampant than the corrupt officials of the local government."
v The General Office of the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Comprehensive Cessation of Paid Services in the Army" on 11 June 2018, requiring a complete cessation of all paid services in the military by the end of 2018. The official Xinhua News Agency reported on May 31 last year that the cessation of military business should be completed by June 2018, a rare extension that shows that the CCP’s order to stop military business has encountered significant resistance.
The so-called paid service of the military originated in 1985 after the reform and opening up. Many troops rented their street-facing houses to local governments. There are more than ten major industries involved. The most typical ones are the hospitals of the military and the armed police (90% of which are for local personnel to see a doctor). ), as well as military and armed police academies, scientific research institutions, warehouses, docks, and literary and artistic products. But then these paid services gradually became a hotbed of corruption in the military.
The "Guiding Opinions on Further Promoting the Comprehensive Cessation of Paid Services in the Military" jointly issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, the General Office of the State Council, and the General Office of the Central Military Commission pointed out that at present, the military's comprehensive cessation of paid services is at a critical period of decisive victory. Party committees and governments at all levels of the military and local governments must strengthen their confidence and determination, strengthen work coordination, and intensify military-civilian cooperation to ensure that the military completes the full suspension of paid services as scheduled. The "Opinions" emphasize that it is necessary to accurately grasp the major strategic decision-making intention of the military to completely stop paid services, and in accordance with the standards of no military operation, no loss of assets, strict integration, and two lines of revenue and expenditure, "by the end of 2018, all paid services in the military should be completely stopped. service activities".
The "Opinions" also require that, for projects with paid services, if the contract agreement has expired, it should be terminated without renewal, and all military assets should be recovered; if the contract agreement has not expired, projects that can be terminated through negotiation or judicial procedures should be terminated in advance. Termination of the contract; if compensation is really needed, economic compensation shall be given in accordance with national laws. Entrusted management can be implemented for projects that have been integrated into the resident urban development plan, directly affect social and economic development and people's livelihood stability, have a long contractual agreement period, have large tenant investment, have potential military use value, and are indeed difficult to shut down and recover. Projects that are relatively independent from the camps and have low military use value but have been transferred can be dealt with by means of replacement after being approved by the Central Military Commission. For real estate leasing projects that introduce local services in the camp, the access conditions, operation methods, preferential measures, and fund management will be standardized.
The "Opinions" emphasize that, after the army has completely stopped paid services, tasks assigned by the state that the army is capable of accomplishing, those that are unique to the army or have obvious advantages, and that are really needed for national construction, as well as projects that the army introduces social forces to serve officers and soldiers, shall be handled by the relevant military and local governments. The department studies and proposes relevant conditions, procedures, approval rights, management and other policies, and implements standardized management. Spare real estate, agricultural and sideline production land, and large-scale hospitality assets are all centrally managed and regulated by the Central Military Commission.
Judging from the information that has been disclosed, the corruption of the CCP's military ranks first in the world. How did this situation come about? There are three main reasons. First Xi Jinping "caught the thief but not the king". So far, he has not arrested Jiang Zemin , the head of the CCP's highest-level and most serious corrupt elements .
The second Xi Jinping investigated and punished only a very small number of "unfortunate eggs" who were not investigated and many more. For example, Major General Zhang Jinchang of the Communist Party of China published an article in "Yanhuang Chunqiu", revealing that Wang Shouye, the former deputy commander of the navy, explained more than 40 people who had the same case with him, but none of those people were held accountable, instead they were promoted and reused.
Third, the root of the CCP's military corruption is "the Party's absolute leadership over the military". Absolute power inevitably leads to absolute corruption.
By mid-September 2023 Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu had not been heard from in more than two weeks. The general last appeared in public at the third China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing on August 29. Li had not left China since a trip to Moscow and Minsk earlier that month. Beijing kept quiet about the disappearance. The only official clue emerged when Vietnamese authorities said that Li’s ministry last week cancelled his trip to Hanoi for “health reasons”. , Li is a hawk who was very aggressive about China’s territorial dispute and relations with the West.
But sources in Washington offered a different explanation. Speaking to the Financial Times on condition of anonymity, several US officials said that Li could be the target of a corruption investigation, which could have prompted Chinese authorities to discreetly remove the defence minister from his post just six months after his appointment by President Xi. Reuters reported on 15 September 2023 that Li was under investigation by Chinese authorities, citing 10 people described as being familiar with the matter.
Li’s profile also fits in well with a major corruption case in the military. Around 2017-2018, he worked for the equipment development department, which … is considered one of the most corrupt because of the huge amount of money they have access to. Since 2018, Li had been on the list of people targeted by US sanctions for having sold military equipment to Russian entities that were sanctioned by the US. Having a defence minister on a Washington sanction list was a bad thing for [China-US] relations.
Beijing seemed to have undertaken a summer clean-up in the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). “There are signs that a vast anti-corruption campaign is ongoing targeting the PLA,” said Carlotta Rinaudo, a China specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona.
In July 2023, Xi himself announced the dismissal of two officials from the PLA’s Rocket Force, a military branch responsible for the development of highly strategic ballistic missiles. In early September 2023, the president of the army’s military court was sacked. Beijing did not give an official reason for this “unexpected shakeup”. However, when it comes to China’s armed forces, corruption is still the chief suspect.
“PLA corruption has been a problem since China opened to the world, economically, in the 1980s”, said sinologist Marc Lanteigne of the Arctic University of Norway. “Going back 20 years, there has been scandal about generals getting rich by selling access and influence.”
Since he came to power in 2012, Xi has made the fight against corruption in the military’s ranks an absolute priority. “He is obsessed with fighting corruption in the PLA,”, said Rinaudo. “When Xi Jinping’s father was rehabilitated, it helped him land a job as a mishu. It's a Chinese term that means literally a ‘book of secrets’ and [designates a] personal assistant who has access” to a military general’s “secrets”, she explained, referencing the purging and later return to favour of Xi's father Xi Zhongxun. “It was a perfect spot to see the extent of the corruption in the PLA."
In January 2021 the Communist Party of China [CPC] expelled former chief commander of its ambitious multi-billion-dollar aircraft carrier program Hu Wenming for corruption and abuse of power, and launched a legal proceeding against him in one of the major defence scandals of the country. Hu was expelled from the CPC for severely violating party discipline and being suspected of taking bribes and misfeasance. Hu had lost his faith, gone astray from the party spirit and did not fully implement the CPC’s important decisions. He also engaged in superstitious activities, resisted the investigation and violated party discipline by accepting banquets and bribes.
In an unusually candid December 2011 speech, PLA Logistics Department Political Commissar General Liu Yuan, son of former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi (1959–1968) and potential friend of President Xi Jinping, reportedly said, ‘‘No country can defeat China . . . Only our corruption can destroy us and cause our armed forces to be defeated without fighting.’’ General Liu in a later speech reportedly explained, ‘‘Certain individuals exchange public money, public goods, public office, and public affairs for personal gain, flouting the law and party codes of conduct, even resorting to verbal abuse and threats, clandestine plots and set ups . . . They deploy all of the tricks of the mafia trade within the army itself.’’
Corruption in the military became widespread in the 1980s, as the PLA branched out into business, seeking opportunity in the new market reforms. Chinese leaders ordered the PLA to withdraw from commercial activities in 1998, but the proces took time. In the new century, graft flared anew, due in no small part to soaring value of land for development, including military land.
In July 1998 President Jiang Zemin ordered the military to shut down all its business enterprises as part of the country's current anti-smuggling campaign. The People's Liberation Army had become heavily involved in the civilian sector of China's economy over the previous two decades, and many analysts wondered if it was possible for the PLA to divest itself of this significant source of revenue.
The army was involved in just about every kind of business. They ran guest houses. They ran karaoke parlors. They ran motor bike manufacturing plants. And they also had been involved in coal mining, horse raising and making sewing machines. Although the Chinese government had been trying to rein in the commercial activities of the PLA for many years, and thus far without success, there was no supposition that just because the order is given it would actually be obeyed.
The revenue derived from these industries was very important to a large number of people in the Chinese military, from the very top people to the grass roots units. No one was precisely sure how much of the PLA operations depended on their income from business enterprises. But it was a substantial amount, that went toward making the difference between a very spartan lifestyle for the units at the bottom and having some of the amenities of life, like repairing barracks. And of course, at the top, it enables people to buy Mercedes sedans and establish foreign bank accounts and entertain lavishly, which is the prelude toward creating guanxi (contacts / relations), and going on to even better things.
The PLA become involved in "civilian sector" enterprises after they were actually urged to do so by none other than Deng Xxiaoping soon after he took over the reins of government in 1978-1979. The military wanted military modernization, and so did Deng. But he was very well aware that China could not graft a strong military onto a weak economy. So he told the PLA the best way to ensure military modernization is to help with the modernization of the civilian economy.
President Jiang Zzemin's announcement for the military to close down these operations was confirmation that the military businesses had been involved in smuggling and other illegal, corrupt activities. The top brass of the military has been worried about this since around 1985. They sometimes refer to the PLA as the "great steel wall," and they said, in so many words, that they worried that the great steel wall was rusting.
So widespread was the trade in ranks that there wre unofficial price tags. Promotion to general cost at least 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) and to senior colonel more than half that. Even just enlisting as an ordinary soldier could cost at least 10,000 yuan in bribes. By some accounts, the going rate to simply join the army, depending on “guanxi,” or connections, was as much as $16,000. If the applicants guanxi was really strong it would cost around 50,000 yuan [$8,000] per quota; if not, the price might be 100,000 yuan [$16,000] at least.
Most duty crime cases in the military occurred in the areas of construction, personnel and finance management, and materials and armament procurement. Logistics posts had become one of the most susceptible to corruption.
Nevertheless, empirical evidence of PLA corruption remains limited. Only two high-profile PLA corruption cases had become known since 2005. Admiral Wang Shouye was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for embezzling approximately $20 million. General Gu Junshan was removed from his post in 2012, and the investigation apparently is ongoing. Both Admiral Wang and General Gu had served as the deputy director of the PLA General Logistics Department, suggesting officers in logistics positions may be more susceptible to corruption, or corruption charges, due to their involvement in infrastructure and natural resources.
In a meeting shortly after becoming the CMC chairman, President Xi urged senior PLA officers ‘‘to take a firm stand against corruption’’ and to maintain a ‘‘strict work style’’ and ‘‘iron discipline.’’ Since then, reducing corruption and waste in the PLA has been one of President Xi’s most consistent messages in his public speeches to the military. In addition to rhetoric, President Xi has announced stronger anticorruption regulations for the PLA, including restrictions on military personnel holding banquets, drinking excessive alcohol, and using luxury hotels.
President Xi’s focus on combating corruption in the PLA is part of the CCP’s larger national effort to boost its image to mitigate growing public disillusionment with politics and governance in China. He also is attempting to end practices such as paying for promotion and graft, which some observers have suggested reduces the quality of officers, perpetuates opposition to reforms, threatens PLA modernization and readiness, and undermines loyalty to the CCP.
President Xi Jinping launched a sweeping campaign against graft since becoming party chief in late 2012, vowing to take down powerful “tigers” as well as lowly “flies.” Xi Jingping's anti-graft campaign had the primary objective of stabilizing the Communist Party," he said. "He is using this anti-graft campaign to regain legitimacy and trust for the Communist Party in the eyes of the people. The larger goal of the anti-graft campaign was to try changing how power is exercised in China and remove the most blatant cases of tutelage and abuses.
The People's Liberation Army was reeling from the crackdown and had seen dozens of officers investigated, including two former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou. The 16th and 47th Group Armies were the power base of disgraced former CMC vice-chairmen Gen. Xu Caihou and Gen. Guo Boxiong. Guo was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery, while Xu Caihou was charged with corruption but died in 2015 while under investigation. Xu Caihou was approved as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Fourth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee, which ended in Beijing on 19 September 2004.
A system of bribery in exchange for promotions, for example, is thought to have been pervasive in the senior officer ranks. The practice was overseen by Xu Caihou. Lieutenant General Gu Junshan was accused of selling hundreds of positions in the armed forces, sometimes for extraordinary sums. If a senior colonel (not in line for promotion) wanted to become a major general, he had to pay up to 30 million yuan ($4.8 million). Lower ranking military positions were sold for hundreds of thousand of yuan.
Xu, previously a member of the CPC Central Military Commission, was born as a native of Wafangdian, Liaoning Province, northeast China, in June 1943. He joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in August 1963 and was trained from 1963 to 1968 at the Electronics Engineering Department of the Harbin Institute of Military Engineering. He joined the Party in April 1971. He was secretary and deputy head of the Personnel Division of the Political Department of the Jilin Military Area Command during 1972 and 1982.
Xu was appointed director of the Mass Work Section of the Political Department of the Shenyang Military Area Command during 1984 and 1985, and political commissar of the 16th Group Army of the Ground Force between 1990 and 1992. Xu served as deputy director of the PLA General Political Department during 1993 and 1996. He was made member of the CPC Central Military Commission and executive deputy director of the PLA General Political Department between 1999 and 2002. Xu was also a member of the 16th CPC Central Committee and of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.
The allegations that retired General Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, took bribes in exchange for giving promotions marks the highest-profile corruption case since that of disgraced politician Bo Xilai in 2013. Xu was accused of accepting bribes and putting a price tag on military promotions as second-in-command of China's 2.3 million armed forces until his retirement.
Former CMC vice chairman Xu Caihou was the biggest "tiger" on the army's corrupt figures' list. Xu was found to have fraudulently promoted officers and accepted huge bribes. Xu Caihou had taken the military to be a market. He sold military positions for money for years. This situation went too far. Those military officers were only loyal to the person who provided the positions that they paid for. In China, whoever can control the military power can seize the whole power strongly.
Xu Caihou, China's former vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), was taken from his sick bed at a military hospital in Beijing on 20 March 2014. His wife, daughter and personal secretary were taken into custody on the same day. The detention is linked to the probe of People's Liberation Army Lieutenant-General Gu Junshan, a former subordinate of Xu who has been detained since 2012.
Xu's detention sent shock waves through the Chinese military but China's top leader, President Xi Jinping, would not and could not punish the scores of high and middle-ranking officers who had bribed Xu to get their ranks and positions. Xi Jinping cannot investigate the greater part of all those military officers that bought titles or ranks from Xu Caihou because the Central Commission for Discipline had already detained nearly everyone connected to Zhou Yongkang that it can. But currently its said out of all those that are either close to Xu Caihou or gave him money, only a few had been detained. Furthermore, Xi Jinping needed the support of the military.
On 20 November 2014, Phoenix Weekly published one of the first in-depth reports on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s ongoing corruption investigation into Xu Caihou, a former member of the CCP Politburo and former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) under President Hu Jintao. In late June, Xu became the highest ranking PLA official to be purged from the CCP in nearly three decades.
The report detailed the enormous scale of assets confiscated from Xu’s property. A dozen military trucks were needed to haul away “more than a ton” of cash, hundreds of kilograms of precious woods, gems, and rare jade, as well as ancient paintings and antiques. Although the report was initially carried by several Chinese news outlets, the article since was censored within China.
According to a high-level source at the General Logistics Department of the CMC referenced in the report, the slow pace of Xu’s investigation and subsequent expulsion from the CPC was due to disagreements between factions within the government. Members of the CMC support Xu, whereas members of the CCP Central Committee have an interest in bringing down corrupt officials at the highest levels. Only after being confronted with the detailed list of confiscated items did Xu “admit defeat,” according to the report.
Guo Boxiong was sentenced 25 July 2016 to life in prison on bribery charges, a move that came as President Xi Jinping attempted to consolidate power and tighten his grip on China's military. Guo was also stripped of his rank and forced to give all of his assets to the government. The 74 -year-old Guo was once vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a member of the Communist Party of China's Politburo, the party's main policymaking committee.
A former member of China's Central Military Commission has committed suicide in November 2017 after authorities opened a corruption probe against him. Zhang Yang was being investigated over his ties to two corruption-tainted generals. Zhang Yang was "suspected of giving and taking bribes" and the origin of a large amount of his assets was unclear, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the commission. "On the afternoon of November 23, Zhang Yang committed suicide at home," the Xinhua report stated.
The probe against Zhang, who was the director of the military's Political Work Department, focused on his suspected links to two corruption-tainted former generals. He allegedly had ties with Guo Boxiong, who received a life sentence for graft in July 2016, as well as Xu Caihou, who died of cancer in March 2015 while on trial. Both Xu and Guo were former chairmen of the Central Military Commission — which is chaired by President Xi Jinping.
Fang Fenghui, a former top Chinese general was sentenced to life in prison for bribery and having an unclear source of assets, state news agency Xinhua reported on 20 February 2019. He was abruptly replaced as chief of the Joint Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in August 2017 and placed under investigation for corruption.
He was later expelled from the Communist Party and stripped of his rank in October 2018 ahead of his court-martial. It represented a quick fall from grace for a general who had accompanied President Xi Jinping on his first trip to visit US President Donald Trump in 2017. Xinhua reported that the military court also stripped Fang of his political rights for life and ordered the confiscation of all his personal assets.
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