China Names 14 Generals Suspected of Corruption

BEIJING — China’s military authority on Monday
released a list of 14 generals who are under
investigation or have been convicted of graft,
among them the son of one of China’s once
highest-ranking generals.

The generals were the latest prominent officers
to fall under President Xi Jinping’s sweeping
anticorruption campaign.

Published on the official website of the People’s
Liberation Army three days before China’s
rubber-stamp legislature convenes for its annual
meeting in Beijing, the list identifies a host of
leading officers, the majority of whom are in the
political and logistics departments of the
military, navy, missile corps and other branches.

The investigators’ focus on the military
bureaucracy highlights two distinct types of
corruption that the Communist Party believes
undermine military readiness, experts say:
bribery in political departments relating to the
sale of positions; and embezzlement within
logistics departments, which handle large
amounts of money as well as contracts.

Among those being investigated is Rear Adm.
Guo Zhenggang, the son of Guo Boxiong, the
retired vice chairman of the powerful Central
Military Commission, which oversees the 2.3
million members of China’s armed forces, the
world’s largest.

Admiral Guo, 45, the deputy political commissar
of military command in the coastal province of
Zhejiang, was put under investigation last month,
suspected of “serious legal violations and
criminal offenses,” a common official euphemism
for corruption.

In what appeared to be a well-timed media
campaign coordinated to discredit the admiral,
the investigative magazine Caijing published a
long exposé of his family’s corrupt land dealings
online, 10 minutes after the list of generals was
released.

According to the article, Admiral Guo’s wife and
mother-in-law were sued by investors after their
real estate company took in over 500 million
renminbi, more than $80 million, to build a five-
story hardware market that was never
completed.

Speculation that members of the Guo family were
being investigated on corruption charges has
swirled for months, despite the government’s
attempts to keep their names off social media.
Last year, the elder Mr. Guo, once the military’s
top uniformed officer, was rumored to have tried
to flee the country dressed in women’s clothing.

Although there was no proof verifying the rumor,
censors quickly blocked search terms like “Guo +
dress in drag” on the popular microblog platform
Sina Weibo, according to China Digital Times, a
website based in Berkeley, Calif., that covers
China news and digital media. Mr. Guo has not
officially been accused of corruption.

The military notice also announced that Lan
Weijie, a former deputy commander in the
central province of Hubei, was sentenced to life
in prison in January for accepting bribes,
owning property purchased with “unidentified
sources” and the illegal possession of firearms.

Last year, China’s widening military corruption
scandal ensnared the military’s former No. 2
official, Xu Caihou, who was indicted in October
on bribery charges. Mr. Xu is one of the highest-
ranking targets of the anticorruption campaign
begun by President Xi, who is also head of the
Central Military Commission.

Mr. Xi has vowed to clean up the military as part
of his campaign to strengthen party rule by
reining in corruption. The campaign comes as
China is upgrading its military capabilities to
bolster claims over disputed maritime territories
in the South and East China Seas, with an eye on
countering the influence of the United States in
Asia and the Pacific.

On Monday, the People’s Liberation Army
published a separate commentary on its website
lauding the investigations as proof that the
military was serious about fighting corruption.

“They show the military’s courage to cut the
poison off the bones with a knife and make steel
out of raging fire,” it said, adding, “Let us praise
the People’s Army that is truly worthy of the
people’s trust.”

But the military’s anticorruption drive also
appears intended to fortify Mr. Xi’s hold on
power by targeting rival factions and alerting
members of his own about the limits of
corruption he will tolerate, according to Phillip C.

Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of
Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense
University in Washington.

So far, investigators have only investigated
former senior members of the Central Military
Commission, rather than those appointed by Mr. Xi.

“It seems to be strategic in who they’re going
after and not going after,” Mr. Saunders said.
“There are people being made an example of
within the P.L.A., but it’s not the people at the
very top. This achieves the purpose of warning
them to tone down corruption without the
political cost.”