China’s Protection Minister Dong Jun (C) attends the opening ceremony of the eleventh Xiangshan Discussion board on the Beijing Worldwide Conference Middle on September 13, 2024. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
BEIJING — Chinese language Protection Minister Dong Jun has been positioned beneath investigation for corruption, a report stated Wednesday, the most recent official to fall in a sweeping crackdown on graft within the nation’s army.
Citing present and former US officers accustomed to the scenario, British newspaper the Monetary Occasions stated the investigation into Dong was a part of that broader probe into army corruption.
If confirmed, Dong could be the third Chinese language protection minister in a row to fall beneath investigation for corruption.
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Requested concerning the report at a daily briefing on Wednesday, Chinese language international ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated it was simply “chasing shadows” and didn’t supply additional info.
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A former navy commander, he was appointed protection minister in December following the shock elimination of predecessor Li Shangfu simply seven months into the job.
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Li was later expelled from the ruling Communist Get together for offenses together with suspected bribery, state media stated. He has not been seen in public since.
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His predecessor, Wei Fenghe, was additionally kicked out of the social gathering and handed on to prosecutors over alleged corruption.
“It’s actually a blow… as a result of one would think about they are going to be tremendous cautious to have somebody very clear on this position,” Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological College, instructed AFP.
“Graft probes are very generally focused on the army due to the lengthy historic ties between the enterprise world and the PLA,” he stated, referring to the Chinese language army by its official acronym.
Deepening crackdown
Beijing has deepened a crackdown on alleged graft within the armed forces over the previous yr, with President Xi Jinping this month ordering the army to stamp out corruption and strengthen its “war-preparedness”.
The depth of the anti-graft drive within the military has been partially pushed by fears that it could have an effect on China’s capability to wage a future conflict, Bloomberg reported citing US officers this yr.
“If the corruption probe into Dong Jun is true, then it’s regular that individuals will query if it can erode morale and if it can have an effect on the PLA’s warfighting capabilities,” Nanyang College’s Loh stated.
The nation’s secretive Rocket Pressure — which oversees China’s huge arsenal of strategic missiles, each standard and nuclear — has come beneath significantly intense scrutiny.
In July, a high Chinese language official within the Rocket Pressure, Solar Jinming, was positioned beneath investigation for corruption.
Solar was kicked out of the ruling Communist Get together and positioned beneath investigation for “grave violations of social gathering self-discipline and legal guidelines”, state information company Xinhua stated on the time, utilizing a typical euphemism for graft.
A minimum of two different high-ranking officers related to the Rocket Pressure, a comparatively new unit of the Chinese language army, have additionally been eliminated for graft.
Victor Shih, an skilled on China’s elite politics, instructed AFP that Dong “probably had authority over tens of billions in procurement per yr” throughout his time within the navy.
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“The issue is that competitors for high positions is so fierce that there could be some mutual recriminations between officers, which might result in countless cycles of arrests, new appointments and recriminations,” he stated.
