Second 'Tibetan' Tiger caught in Wang's Net

Le Dake at the Centre

Yesterday Reuters reported that a former top Chinese security official in Tibet was being investigated ‘for suspected graft’.
It was announced a day earlier by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog, headed by Wang Qishan.
Reuters says that it is “a rare example of corruption busters going into the restive and remote region.”


The case of General Yang Jinshan
It might be rare, but it is not the only case, as many agencies later reported.
Last year in October, I wrote on this blog: “It is the end of the road for Lt. Gen. Lt. Yang Jinshan, a former Commander of the Tibet Military District of the Chengdu Military Region (MR). He lost his membership of the Central Committee of the CCP.”
Lt. Gen. Yang Jinshan (Han nationality), born in August 1954, joined the Communist Party of China in May 1972. In December 2005, he was promoted to the rank of major general and in July 2011, he became a lieutenant general. From 2007 to 2009, he served as the Head of Armament Department of Chengdu Military Region (MR). In 2009, he became Commander of Tibet Military District. In November 2012, he was elected as Member of 18th CPC's powerful Central Committee.
Lt. General Yang Jinshan had an Air Force background; this may explain the repeated 'air exercises' in the Tibet District, facing Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim during the last few years.
In June 2013, General Yang was transferred (on promotion) to Chengdu as a Deputy Commander of the Chengdu MR. In October 20154, he was formally expelled from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China 'for serious disciplinary violations'.
Lt. Gen. Yang, as one of 41 members of the PLA in the Central Committee, was 'senior' in the Party to his direct boss, Lt. Gen. Li Zuocheng, the Commander of Chengdu MR.
In July 2014, The South China Morning Post (SCMP) had reported "One of the top PLA officers leading the Chengdu military area command has been detained amid graft allegations making him the latest high-ranking officer to fall in a sweeping effort to clean up the image of the world's largest fighting force." The Hong Kong newspaper quoting four different sources said: "Investigators took Yang Jinshan, a lieutenant general, to Beijing last week as part of a corruption investigation. His family members and secretary were also detained."
The arrest of General Yang was part of the wider inquiry into Xu Caihou, the former Central Military Commission (CMC) vice-chairman.
Xu had been accused of accepting very large bribes. In June 2014, Xu was himself expelled from the Communist Party. A few months later, Yang walked into his mentor's steps.
Further, Yang was probably connected with the disgraced Politburo leader, Bo Xilai, as Yang served in the 14th Group Army, based in Kunming, Yunnan province (under the Chengdu MR). One of the founders of the Group Army was Bo Yibo, Bo Xilai's father.
The SCMP suspects: "Bo Xilai visited Yunnan not long after his right-hand man Wang Lijun sought refuge in the US consulate in Chengdu in February 2012. Since that visit, some of the senior officers of the corps have been replaced, prompting speculation about whether the reshuffle was linked to Bo."
We have not heard of Yang Jinshan since then.

The case of Le Dake
Dr. Le Dake is born in Dongxiang County, Jiangxi in March 1960 (age 55). He was the Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s People's Congress till his arrest. He has been serving in this post from January 2013 to June 25, 2015.
In December 1976, Le Dake worked as a ‘sent-down youth’ in a Red Star Farm. Later, he attended to Jiangxi University in 1983 and graduated in 1986 (he apparently earned a PhD).
Dr. Le Dake started his career in the 1980s in the Public Security Bureau (police), in Jiangxi Province; later, he switched to State Security (external intelligence) work in 1994.
In 2004, he was posted in Tibet where, as director of TAR’s Regional National Security Department, he was responsible of collecting ‘hostile foreign intelligence’. His name was rarely appeared in the press.
Earlier, the Intelligence boss would remain in the shadow, but after 2013, Le Dake became openly an active member of the TAR Legislature’s Standing Committee.
In 2008, after the unrest in Tibet and just before the Olympic Games in Beijing, President Hu Jintao set up an emergency military-security cell for watching Tibet. The objective of the unit was to ‘save’ the Olympic Games in Beijing from hostile Western attacks.
The website, Intelligence Online then said that the group consisted of “the heads of the security and intelligence agencies, leading military men, newly-appointed politicians and members of Hu’s clan, with the exception of Zhou Yongkang: number three man in the party and supervisor of the security services.”
Why Zhou, since then himself ‘investigated’, was not part of it, is a mystery.
The website adds that in Lhasa, Hu depended on the State Security set up “to provide information on the role of the United States in the crisis.”
A French journalist Roger Faligot in his book “Les Services Secret Chinoise de Mao aux JO (Chinese Secret Service from Mao to Olympic Games), had revealed that Le Dake had “infiltrated agents into India where the Dalai Lama lives in exile, and has sought to isolate him politically.”
It is very difficult to corroborate this information and even to say if the arrest of Le Dake is linked with his ‘work’ in Tibet or simply is connected with corruption.
Another possibility is that Xi Jinping has decided to change the cook for his new stew, 'Buddha jumping the Wall'? The future will tell us if the stew is tastier or not.