On Monday, China officially announced the expulsion of two senior military generals from both the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This includes the highest-ranking PLA official, marking a significant shift in military leadership. The reasons behind this action have not been disclosed, but it underscores ongoing changes within China’s military hierarchy.
The decision was made and formally approved at a Politburo meeting chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, state media reported.
The probes into charges against Zhang and Liu were announced in January and both were removed from the state Central Military Commission in late August, according to the Reuters report. Zhang, second-in-command under Xi, has long been seen as the Chinese President’s closest military ally, Reuters reported. Zhang was the first-ranking vice chairman of the powerful seven-member CMC, which is the overall high command of the Chinese military headed by President Xi Jinping, PTI news agency reported.
It said that the pair had “crossed red lines and basic limits”, adding that their “political and economic wrongdoings were intertwined, and corrupt self-enrichment coexisted with dereliction of duty and abuse of office. They had taken part in the PLA campaigns against Vietnam in the late 1970s, according to PTI. Zhang was formally detained by military corruption investigators in the same month. Both were members of the Central Military Commission – the supreme command body. His position in the CMC made him the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the Chinese military. Both Zhang and Liu were decorated war heroes and the only two members of the CMC with combat experience.
