(Dec 22): Chinese President Xi Jinping installed new military leadership for its central and eastern regions amid an unprecedented purge of the top defence echelons.
General Yang Zhibin has become commander of the Eastern Theatre Command, responsible for Taiwan operations, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The report also named General Han Shengyan as the new commander of the Central Theatre Command, which is in charge of defence forces in the capital Beijing, Tianjin and five other provinces.
The moves were revealed at a general promotion ceremony on Monday — Xi’s first so far this year — and come after the ouster of several top generals earlier this year. The former commander of the Taiwan command, Lin Xiangyang, was removed in October for violating party discipline and laws. Meanwhile, Wang Qiang, ex-Central Theatre Commander, missed a military parade in Beijing in September without reason.
The report didn’t indicate Wang’s next job.
At that parade in September, China showed off the country’s latest combat drones and nuclear weapons, demonstrating its broader efforts to modernise the army and challenge US supremacy despite an ongoing corruption campaign in the military.
China has launched military purges in response to what US intelligence believes is widespread corruption undermining Xi’s ambitions. A major concern appears to be graft that has eroded the quality of the weapons and capabilities of units such as the Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s missiles and nuclear arsenal, and would be instrumental should China invade Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing sees as part of its territory.
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But that crackdown has since rippled across the defence establishment to take down two former defence ministers, top generals in various forces and military commands, making it the biggest since Mao Zedong’s rule ended in 1976.
Han was serving as commander of the Central Theater Command’s Air Force, a branch that has so far seen relatively fewer public announcements of corruption purges. He stood in for Wang during the September parade.
Yang, who also has an air force background, was until recently the vice commander of the Eastern Theatre Command. He attended a memorial of the Nanjing Massacre earlier this month.
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