China no longer has a defense minister

Farewell to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s men. After rumors circulated about the absence of Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who had been out of the spotlight since last August, today, October 24, confirmation came that the general had been dismissed. Not just. Li also loses his role in the State Council and the Central Military Commission (the highest military body headed by Xi). The general was dismissed without any reason and his replacement has not yet been appointed. The general’s dismissal was confirmed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the legislative body of China’s parliament, and Xi signing presidential decrees.

This is the second impeachment since Xi won a third term as secretary of the Communist Party of China. Before Li, former foreign minister Qin Gang, who has now been replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi, disappeared from public view. Both were removed from their positions as members of the state parliament, which today is a more important post than a ministerial post. Additionally, Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang was replaced by Yin Hejun, and Minister of Finance Liu Kun was replaced by Lan Foan.

The choice of timing for the delivery of judgments raises many doubts. In fact, in a few days, work will begin on the Xiangshan Forum (the Chinese version of the Shangri-La Dialogue) in Beijing, where a US delegation will also be present. Washington and Beijing are anxiously awaiting the arrival of this regional defense forum in the hope that representatives of the two governments will continue military talks that cooled after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August last year.

What happened?

Let’s take a step back. General Li has missed several official appointments, most recently at the Third China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing on August 29. At first, rumors began to circulate that the then Minister of Defense was experiencing health problems. Answering journalists’ questions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson always reiterated that he had no information about the issue. A similar response was given to Foreign Minister Qin, who was dismissed last July for his extramarital affair with a journalist from Hong Kong television channel Phoenix TV, who interviewed him while he was China’s ambassador to the United States. From 2021 to December 2022. It was only in recent weeks that it was revealed that Minister Qin was under investigation for corruption. The same fate befell some high-ranking generals who headed an army unit that controlled nuclear warheads in 2016.

Therefore, the corruption investigation hypothesis began to circulate for General Li as well. In mid-September, Reuters reported that Li, along with eight other senior officials, was under investigation for corruption in connection with the procurement of military equipment when he headed the special office of the Central Military Commission between September 2017 and last October. The conclusion came after last July that the military ordnance department – ​​in a rare move – reported that corruption investigations into tendering and purchasing procedures had continued since 2017, since Li was head of the Chinese military’s procurement unit. Li has been under US sanctions since 2018 for ordering the purchase of Russian weapons. American sanctions against Li have long been a source of conflict between the U.S. and Chinese military commands.

All the President’s men

Qin Gang and Li Shangfu are the chairman’s men. Or rather, they were, at least until they were relieved of their duties as head of Foreign Affairs and Defense. This is a change of pace that will show how much the president no longer has the unconditional support of the leadership. According to a recent backstory by Nikkei Asia Review, during the Chinese leadership’s traditional summer vacation in the seaside resort of Beidahe, a delegation of Party elders led by Zeng Qinghong, one of the right-hand men of the late former president Jiang Zemin, was lamented by China’s economic and social difficulties. He questioned Xi’s leadership, citing the danger of losing consensus.

Beidaihe, secret meeting where Chinese leaders will decide the fate of the country

According to the Japanese newspaper’s reconstruction, Xi Jinping instead pointed to the policies of his three predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, who are known as the architects of the reforms and expansions that led to a new leadership of the People’s Republic. The world’s second economic power.