What Would Mao Say? Top Chinese General Arrested for Graft

NOZOMU HAYASHI

August 2, 2015

Xi strengthens control after former top military officer detained 

BEIJING–A former officer known as the “don of the military’s northwestern faction” was detained July 30 on suspicion of bribery, a move seen as tightening Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grip over the armed forces.

Guo Boxiong, 73, was stripped of his Communist Party membership and accused of major disciplinary violations in addition to taking bribes, according to the Central Committee Politburo’s decision.

His case was sent to military prosecutors.

Guo served as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission when Hu Jintao was president. The other vice chairman of that time, Xu Caihou, was detained in 2014 on suspicion of corruption, but he died before an indictment could be handed down.

The latest decision means the two top military officers under Xi’s predecessor have been taken into custody.

According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, Guo is suspected of accepting bribes in exchange for promoting his subordinates. The Politburo decision was described as “an expression of the resolute political resolve to strictly govern the military by law.”

Although the monetary amount or scale of the bribes were not given, a statement released by the Politburo said Guo’s crimes were grave and had a “vile impact.”

Guo was a key member of the Hu administration after being appointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2002.

He was said to be politically close to Jiang Zemin, Hu’s predecessor as president, as well as being critical of the military reform measures being pushed by the Xi administration.

While Xu was mainly in charge of administrative and political education in the military when he served as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo was in charge of actual military operations.

“With his long experience of working at the front lines, Guo was a leader who had a much deeper network of personnel ties than Xu,” a party source said.

For that reason, the detention of Guo has sent shock waves through the Chinese military.

However, the move demonstrates once again Xi’s determination to use an anti-corruption campaign to gain greater control over the military.

At a 2011 Central Military Commission, Liu Yuan, who has close ties to Xi, accused Gu Junshan, the deputy director of the military’s General Logistics Department, of accepting bribes, according to a party source who has a relative in a Cabinet-level position.

Liu was a political commissioner for the General Logistics Department. However, both Guo and Xu prevented Gu’s detention at that time. Gu was later indicted on graft charges.

In June 2015, Liu contributed a piece to the political theory journal Qiushi, an organ of the Communist Party Central Committee, in which he criticized Xu and his associates as “tainted by corruption.”

Liu also wrote that the arbitrary actions taken by Xu and others prevented able officers from gaining proper promotion.