JESSE JOHNSON
The United States believes Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has been placed under investigation and relieved of his command, reports said Friday, in what could be the latest sign of turmoil in Chinese leader Xi Jinping's government, just over six months after he installed a collection of loyalist leaders in his Cabinet.
Three U.S. officials and two people briefed on intelligence surrounding Li told the Financial Times that Washington has concluded that the defense chief, who took up his post in March, had been stripped of his responsibilities. They did not offer further insights into the probe.
Li, who has not been seen in public since Aug. 29, would be the latest senior Chinese official to lose his post, following Xi’s abrupt purge last month of two generals leading the country’s Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s nuclear and land-based missile arsenal, and the still-unexplained-disappearance of then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who was stripped of his position in July, seven months into the job.
Also in July, the Chinese military launched an inquiry and sought clues from the public on graft cases during the military’s procurement process dating back to October 2017. It did not elaborate on why that month and year had specifically been chosen, but Li headed the equipment procurement department from September 2017 to October 2022.
Li also currently serves as one of China's five state councilors, a Cabinet post that ranks higher than a regular minister. As defense chief, his position is typically less visible than top diplomats and some other officials who hold regular meetings with foreign officials.
If Li is formally removed from his post, he would be the second state councilor, following Qin, to be fired from a ministerial position in three months.
“It could be even worse than that,” one U.S. official told The Washington Post in a separate report on Li, alluding to the potential for further purges.
Friday’s news comes a day after Reuters reported that Li had abruptly pulled out of an annual meeting with Vietnamese defense officials last week, with Beijing citing a "health condition” as the reason. The explanation was similar to one given for Qin’s absence ahead of his removal.
The Post, citing an unidentified Chinese official, reported that Li’s dismissal was imminent, with the official saying it was for “health issues,” not corruption. Two people involved with the Chinese defense industry, however, told The Post that there is broad consensus that Li’s absence is related to graft charges linked to his previous procurement position.
During a military inspection last week, Xi called for “a high level of integrity and unity” in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), further stoking speculation about Li’s disappearance.
In his second social media post in a week on the subject of Li, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on Friday questioned whether the defense chief had been put under house arrest.
“As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.’ 1st: Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen or heard from in 3 weeks. 2nd: He was a no-show for his trip to Vietnam. Now: He’s absent from his scheduled meeting with the Singaporean Chief of Navy because he was placed on house arrest???...Might be getting crowded in there,” Emanuel posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Last week, the tough-talking U.S. envoy, who has routinely lambasted China on the social media site, said Xi’s Cabinet line up was “now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None.”
Li attends a meeting with the Russian leadership in Moscow in April.
But despite the apparent faltering of Xi’s long-running anti-corruption drive to wipe the PLA clean of graft, experts believe he still retains a strong grip on the military.
“If the alleged purge is true, then judging from the fact that Xi can remove several top-level military officials merely months into their new terms, Xi Jinping's control over the military remains solid,” said Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist with the Australian National University.
“However, it also reveals inadequacies in the PLA's personnel promotion and vetting apparatus, for if these officials are truly so problematic as to warrant purges rather than lower-key lateral moves out of the limelight, then they should not have been promoted in the first place,” he added.
Queried Friday about the report of Li’s removal, the Pentagon referred questions to China, but stressed the need for open communications and transparency between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.
“What I will say is that the (Department of Defense) continues to believe in the importance of maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication between the United States and the (People's Republic of China) across multiple levels, including the senior-most levels,” a Pentagon spokesperson told The Japan Times.
Any purge of Li could remove an obstacle to improving bilateral U.S.-China military ties. The Chinese defense chief has been subject to sanctions by Washington since 2018 in connection with China’s purchase of Russian weapons, and Beijing has refused to allow any meeting between him and his U.S. counterpart while the measures remain in place.
The sanctions have prevented a restart in high-level military-to-military contacts, which were halted after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August last year. That visit was followed by a number of massive military exercises around the self-ruled island, which China says is a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China’s military was holding large-scale military drills around Taiwan this week, sending 13 warplanes — including heavy bombers — into the democratic island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and across the so-called median line that separates both sides of the Taiwan Strait on Friday.
Those drills came a day after China sent 68 warplanes and other military aircraft near Taiwan, including 40 that flew inside the ADIZ and across the median line, possibly as part of exercises held in coordination with warships, including China’s Shandong aircraft carrier, east of Taiwan in the western Pacific that have lasted for several days.
The dearth of communication has raised concerns about an accident between the Chinese and U.S. militaries — which routinely operate in the area — spiraling out of control.
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