China Defence Minister Dong Jun has been positioned under investigation as fragment of a wide-ranging anti-corruption probe that has roiled the head ranks of the Other folks’s Liberation Military, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Dong is the third consecutive serving or extinct Chinese language defence minister to be investigated for alleged corruption, the FT reported, citing fresh and extinct US officials.
China’s international and defence ministries did no longer instantly reply to Reuters requests for comment.
China’s militia has undergone a sweeping anti-corruption purge since ideal yr, with at the least 9 PLA generals and a handful of defence switch executives removed from the nationwide legislative physique to this level.
Dong, a extinct PLA Navy chief, became appointed defence minister in December 2023. His predecessor, Li Shangfu, became removed after seven months into the job.
Dong ideal week declined to meet US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin all the blueprint via a assembly of defence ministers in Laos citing US actions over Taiwan, a transfer the Pentagon chief said on Wednesday became uncomfortable.
As defence minister, Dong is to blame for China’s militia diplomacy with a mode of countries. He oversaw a most popular thaw in US-China militia-to-militia ties, with both countries conserving theatre-level commander talks for the essential time in September.
However he became no longer promoted to the six-member Central Military Charge (CMC), China’s highest-level militia physique, all the blueprint via a essential Communist Birthday party plenum earlier this yr, the attach personnel reshuffles would in most cases be launched.
China’s defence minister has historically been a member of both the CMC, which is headed by Chinese language President Xi Jinping, and the Enlighten Council, China’s cupboard-level govt physique.
Dong became no longer appointed to the Enlighten Council both all the blueprint via a govt reshuffle in March.
“Frankly nothing would surprise me anymore,” said Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown College and extinct US intelligence analyst.
“The history with these investigations in the PLA are that once the string of corruption is pulled many varied threads are revealed and the sweater unravels.”
Dong’s two instant predecessors, Li and Wei Fenghe, were expelled from the Communist Birthday party in June for “vital violations of self-discipline”, a euphemism for corruption.
A Communist Birthday party observation at the time said the pair “betrayed the have confidence of the event and the Central Military Charge, seriously polluted the political atmosphere of the militia, and triggered gigantic injure to … the image of its senior leaders”.
The pair were also discovered to have confidence got expansive sums of cash in bribes and “sought personnel advantages” for others, the observation said.
Reuters exclusively reported ideal yr that Li became under investigation for suspected corruption in militia procurement.
Wei had disappeared from public survey after he became changed in March 2023 all the blueprint via a deliberate cupboard reshuffle. Wei became head of the strategic Other folks’s Liberation Military (PLA) Rocket Force from 2015-17.
