President Xi Jinping has dismissed top Chinese generals amid a seeming cleansing of the ruling party.
Mr Xi dismissed two top generals at the head
of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force in what appears to be a
purge, with allegations of corruption expected.
Wang Houbin, a former deputy commander of the
Navy, has been named the new commander of the Rocket Force, which is in charge
of managing land-based missile defence. He will collaborate with political
commissar Xu Xisheng, who was transferred from the Air Force.
The Second Artillery Corps’s successor, the
PLA Rocket Force, became a significant part of China’s armed forces in 2016.
It oversees China’s vast stockpile of tactical
and strategic land-based missiles.
The purge is an example of the Chinese
Communist Party’s (CCP) continued campaign to oust its leadership.
Despite the lack of specifics, the action
sheds some light on the persistent crisis of military corruption.
According to reports, Li Yuchao, the former
commander of the PLA Rocket Force, Liu Guangbin, his deputy, and Zhang
Zhenzhong, a former deputy, were all imprisoned in June.
China has not yet made a formal declaration
of a corruption inquiry.
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