Beijing [China], November 29 : Chinese Defence Ministry has announced that a top military official has been suspended and placed under investigation for corruption, CNN reported. The development comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping broadens a purge in the top ranks of the military.
While addressing a news conference on Thursday, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said that Admiral Miao Hua, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), China's top military body led by Xi, has been placed under investigation for "serious violations of discipline" - a euphemism for corruption, CNN reported.
Admiral Miao Hua (69) leads the Political Work Department of the CMC. He is considered a close protege of Xi Jinping, and had served as a political officer in the army in Fujian when Xi was a local official there in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Xi Jinping a initiated a crackdown on corruption in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) since 2023, focusing on the Rocket Force, an elite branch overseeing the country's nuclear and conventional missiles.
Xi's move resulted in the downfall of several senior generals, including China's former Defence Minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor Wei Fenghe, who were expelled from the party in June over corruption allegations, according to CNN report.
The ongoing developments in the upper ranks of the military comes as Xi Jinping wants to make China's armed forces stronger, more combat-ready and more aggressive for asserting its disputed territorial claims in the region.
In Xi's aim to make PLA a a "world class" fighting force, China has spent billions of dollars for purchasing and upgrading equipment. Since last summer, over a dozen high-level military officers and aerospace executives in the military-industrial complex have been suspended from their public roles.
Majority of the generals purged were related to the Rocket Force or military equipment, including Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe.
During last summer, Li disappeared from public view few months after assuming his charge, and weeks after a surprise shake-up of the leadership of the Rocket Force. In October, he was removed from his position, without any explanation, and replaced by China's current Defence Minister Dong Jun. However, Dong was not appointed to the CMC, a major break of tradition in recent years.
Chinese Defence Minister is a largely ceremonial role, serving as the public face of military diplomacy with other countries. Chinese top military official under investigation, Miao, is seen as a political patron of Dong, who is also an admiral and once served as the top commander of the PLA Navy.
A native of Fujian, Miao rose through the ranks in the political departments of the military. In 2014, two years after Xi Jinping came to power, Miao was promoted to the position of political commissar of the PLA Navy, overlapping with the time Dong served as the deputy chief of staff of the Navy.
Miao was promoted again to the rank of the director of the CMC's Political Work Department in 2017. Xi Jinping has made removing corruption and disloyalty a hallmark of his rule since he came to power in 2012, and the actions against top officials indicate that campaign is far from over within the military, CNN reported.
In a post on X, Lyle Morris, a foreign policy and national security fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, stated, "Corruption in China's military is not a case of a 'few bad apples.' It is part of 'doing business' in the PLA to a much greater extent than most other military organizations around the world, where the rule of law and checks and balances can serve to expose major acts of nepotism and corruption.
He added, "Despite Xi's best efforts, corruption in the PLA will endure and bedevil Xi and his successor for the foreseeable future."