Beijing Expels 3 Senior Defense Industry Officials Amid Ongoing Military Purge

The Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s rubber-stamp legislature has held a special session to expel three senior military-industrial officials amid the ongoing military purge.

Analysts told The Epoch Times that although the removal of the three technocrats exposes the Chinese regime’s systemic corruption, these men were not the primary targets of the special meeting, as infighting among the top echelons of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persists.

The three technocrats who were removed from the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Feb. 4 include Zhou Xinmin, former chairman of Aviation Industry Corp. of China; Luo Qi, former chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corp. and a nuclear power expert; and Liu Cangli, former president of the China Academy of Engineering Physics, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a nuclear weapons expert.

All three men had been absent from important events or had left their positions for unspecified reasons for months before the official announcement at the Standing Committee’s special meeting.

The announcement came amid the CCP’s political turmoil caused by the recent removal of top generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli.

The Chinese regime’s official media have been unusually quiet about the incident after the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), published an editorial on Jan. 25 criticizing Zhang and Liu Zhenli for “seriously violating and undermining the system of responsibility under the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and endangering the foundation of the CCP’s rule.”

Meanwhile, various departments of the Central Military Commission or major military commands have been silent about CCP leader Xi Jinping’s purge of the two top generals, unlike previous incidents in which they expressed support almost immediately through official statements. The unusual silence indicates that the case is not totally settled and that dissent is growing within the military, according to analysts who recently spoke with The Epoch Times.

This special session of the NPC was held outside its regular schedule, which suggests that it was convened to address specific and important matters, Shen Ming-shih, a research fellow at the Division of National Security Research at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times.

However, the outcome was limited to the removal of three technocrats from their NPC delegate positions, according to him.

“A regular meeting at the end of the month would have sufficed for their removal; this special session was unnecessary,” he said.

Shen said the NPC’s special session was intended to formalize Xi’s purge of Zhang, vice chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, a member of the Central Military Commission and chief of the Joint Staff Department, as well as to remove their representative positions in the national legislature. The three technocrats were intended to serve as secondary cases to accompany the main case of Zhang and Liu Zhenli’s purge, according to Shen.

Since they could not reach an agreement at the special meeting about Zhang and Liu Zhenli’s case, “the technocrats’ secondary cases became the only outcome of the meeting,” Shen said.

“When Xi Jinping was purging Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, he did not follow the necessary procedures within the Party,” he said. “It was only after a few Standing Committee members—Xi Jinping, Cai Qi, and Li Qiang—discussed the matter and they took action.”

Zhang Tianliang, a current affairs commentator and contributor to NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, shared the same assessment on his Chinese-language talk show. He said the NPC’s special session was Xi’s failed attempt to legitimize his purge of Zhang Youxia from the Central Military Commission and to expel him from the national legislature, and that it met resistance from officials within the Party.

Shen noted that in the Jan. 25 PLA Daily editorial in which Zhang Youxia’s removal was announced, five charges—all of them political—were listed against him. However, he said, in subsequent PLA Daily editorials and commentaries, the charges were changed to corruption.

“However, it hasn’t been clarified whether this corruption occurred during [Zhang Youxia’s] time as minister of the [PLA’s] General Armaments Department or after he joined the Central Military Commission,” Shen said.

“Also, what kind of corruption Liu Zhenli is involved in is something Xi Jinping will have to clarify. If he doesn’t clarify this, and given the incomplete or illegal procedures, Xi Jinping’s purge of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli will lack legitimacy and legality.”

Pervasive Corruption, Overestimated Military Capabilities

The analysts said nearly all CCP officials are corrupt and that they use anti-corruption to attack their political enemies.

Over the past three years, key personnel in China’s military-industrial complex have also been frequently implicated in corruption and removed from their positions amid the CCP’s military purge. Since the exposure of the corruption scandal within the Rocket Force in 2023, and the subsequent investigations into equipment procurement corruption, high-ranking officials in military-industrial enterprises have been frequently dismissed.

However, most of these dismissals have not been officially announced; rather, the officials involved have mysteriously “disappeared,” Shen said. Only some officials holding positions as NPC deputies or Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference members have had their dismissals officially announced because of procedural requirements.

Regarding the three technocrats being expelled from the legislature, Shen said, “It indicates that the crackdown on corruption in the military industry or the People’s Liberation Army will continue, as it’s unlikely that only these three individuals are corrupt.”

Also, the frequent occurrence of corruption cases in the military industry indirectly reflects the CCP’s misrepresentation of its own military capabilities, according to Shen.

“These three technocrats were responsible for critical weapons and equipment, which indirectly reflects that the CCP military’s actual combat capabilities are not as impressive as they are portrayed,” he said.

Mark Cao, a U.S.-based military tech analyst, former materials engineer, and host of Chinese-language military news YouTube channel Mark Space, told The Epoch Times that corruption within the Chinese military-industrial complex has persisted for many years.

He cited the example of the conflict along the Sino-Indian border, where it was discovered that Chinese armored vehicles could be damaged by mere stones, as shown in videos of the conflict circulating on social media. Mark said that based on the online videos, ordinary steel had been used instead of armor-grade steel.

“Military-industrial corruption is widespread, and what’s being exposed now is only a small part of it, which is the result of the factional struggles at play,” he said.

Luo Ya contributed to this report.