Another Tibet hand who matters

Yang Xiaodu

In 2012, I wrote on this blog a piece The Chinese who matter in Tibetan Affairs.
It was a list of Chinese officials who had a say in Tibet affairs.
Either they had been, or still were associated with the Roof of the World.
I then wrote: “One can only hope that wisdom will prevail and that they will realize that it is in their (and China's) interest to find a decent solution to the Tibetan issue with the present Dalai Lama.”
Well, no progress in this front.
In fact, many of the officials that I then listed have since then been purged or investigated, others have retired.

Another Tibet hand promoted
Now a new name should be added: Yang Xiaodu.
Yang, the second-ranking graft-buster (deputy chief of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection or CCDI), has been appointed head of the country’s new sweeping anti-corruption body, the National Supervisory Commission
“A surprise move that effectively asserts the party’s ultimate authority above the powerful state agency”, says The South China Morning Post.
The Hong Kong newspaper added: “The controversial new body will extend the powers of the party’s internal disciplinary watchdog to oversee a vast number of state and public-sector employees, including managers of state-run schools, hospitals, media organisations and companies – even if they are not party members.”
Yang, 64, worked with President Xi Jinping in Shanghai, but also for more than years in Tibet.
The Nikkei from Japan, said that Yang “spent over two decades working in Tibet, rising from section chief of a state pharmaceutical company to vice chairman of the region's government. The Shanghai native was one of thousands of ethnic Han settlers dispatched by Beijing to oversee administration and keep a lid on protests in Tibet,” adding the fight against corruption has been a key feature of the Xi regime since his ascendance to the presidency in 2013.
He promised to catch the ‘tigers and swatting flies’.
Yang will second him.


Here is Yang's biography
Yang was born in Shanghai in 1953. In 1970, during the Cultural Revolution, he was sent-down youth performing manual labour in Taihe County, Anhui province.
In September 1973, he began studying at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
He graduated in 1976 and then began working in Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet for a drug company. In 1984, he was named party chief of Nagchu Hospital.
In September 1986, Yang was named deputy commissioner (vice mayor equivalent) of Nagchu. In December 1992, he was named deputy party chief of Chamdo Prefecture.
In 1995, he was named head of the finance department of Tibet Autonomous Region.
In May 1998, he became Vice-Chairman of Tibet Autonomous Region, ascending to sub-provincial rank for the first time. In 2001, he returned to his native Shanghai and became vice mayor.
He studied legal theory at the Central Party School while holding a job in Tibet.
In October 2006, he was named a member of the municipal Party Standing Committee of Shanghai and head of the municipal United Front Department; in May 2012, he was named head of the Shanghai Discipline Inspection Commission.
In November 2013, having reached retirement age for sub-provincial level officials, he was named head of the 3rd Inspection Team, in charge of anti-corruption work at the Ministry of Land and Resources. In January 2014, he was elected Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
On December 25, 2016, Yang was named Minister of Supervision, the eighth and oldest person to serve in the position since the founding of the People's Republic.
Yang is a member of the 19th Politburo of the Communist Party of China.

What happened to the 'Chinese who matter in Tibetan Affairs’, mentioned in my post in 2012.

• Yu Zhengsheng, former member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo has retired.
• Hu Chunhua, a member of the Politburo of the 19th Central Committee, has been promoted as one of the four vice premiers in the State Council
• Sun Chunlan, head of the United Front Work Department, is a vice premier too.
• Liu Yandong, former member of the Politburo and Vice-Premier, State Council has retired
• Wang Huning, member, Politburo has been elevated to the Standing Committee of the Politburo
• Meng Jianzhu, member, Politburo has retired
• Guo Jinlong, member, Politburo has retired
• Ling Jihua, former head of the United Front Work Department is in jail
• Yang Chuantang former Minister of Transport got a  'semi retired' job as Vice-Chairman of the CPPCC
• Li Liguo, former Minister of Civil Affairs is investigated
• Du Qinglin, former head of the United Front Work Department has retired
• Wang Jianping, former Commander of the People's Armed Police Force is in jail
• Chen Quanguo, former Party Secretary in Tibet, now Party Secretary in Xinjiang, has been promoted in the Politburo
• Lt Gen Yang Jinshan, former Commander of the Tibet Military Area is in jail
• Lt Gen Xu Yong is still commanding the Tibet Military Area (he was during the Doklam episode)
• Hao Peng, a former Deputy Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional has now been promoted to the 19th Central Committee. He presently is the Party Secretary of the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), after serving as the Governor of Qinghai between 2013 and 2016
• Qin Yizhi, former head of the Chinese Communist Party’s youth league has been demoted
• Zhang Qingli, former Party boss in Tibet remains CPPCC's vice-chairman
• Wang Zhengwei, former Chairman of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission between 2013 and 2016, and Governor of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region between 2007 and 2013 is like Zhang Qingli and Yang Chuantang, a vice-chairman of the CPPCC

The Tale of Three Zhaos

Many of us have been introduced to Tibet by the famous cartoon The Adventures of Tintin.
One can’t forget the two detectives, Thomson and Thompson (in French, Dupond et Dupont). Though they are rather poor detectives (like Inspector Jacques Clouseau), they provide so comic relief to the reader..
These characters, who look like identical twins (despite their different, though sounding-same surnames), came back to mind, when I saw the picture of China’s two main detectives, Zhao Leji and Zhao Kezhi attending a session with the Tibetan delegates at the 13th National People Congress (NPC).
Zhao Leji is the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, (CCDI) the party's top anti-corruption body. He is also a member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
Zhao Kezhi is Minister and Party Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security; in other words, he is responsible for the security in the Middle Kingdom. As mentioned earlier on this blog is also a centrally-nominated delegate from Tibet to the NPC.
Let us not forget that the CCDI has the power to summon and detain without charge any member it suspects of breaching party rules and regulations. Suspects are barred from seeing a lawyer while they are detained.

Zhao Leji (center), Zhao Khezi (left) and Wu Yingje (right)

Zhao and Zhao do not bring comic relief to anyone in the Kingdom.
The South China Morning Post noted: “A new supervision law detailing how the new super agency will operate is to be put to a vote on March 20, the last day of the legislative meeting.”
According to the Hong Kong newspaper, the new agency will be a merger of several government and prosecutorial anti-graft departments: “A  whole chapter in the amended constitution is dedicated to the new agency. Its chairperson will be appointed by the National People’s Congress, which is the only body overseeing the commission. The legislature also has the power to dismiss the agency’s chairperson.”
Zhao Leji will be chairman of the new Commission.
The fact that China’s two supreme detectives attended the meeting of the Tibet delegation does not augur well for the aspirations of the Tibetans.
A website site mentioned in an earlier post said: “The TAR spends around three to five times more on domestic security than the average of all provinces and regions. Likewise, Xinjiang’s spending between 2014 and 2016 has been double that of the national regional average, and over triple in 2017. While domestic security spending across all provinces and regions rose by 215 percent between 2007 and 2016, Xinjiang’s grew by 411 percent, the TAR’s by 404 percent, and Qinghai Province’s by 316 percent (Qinghai’s population is 25 percent Tibetan). Spending in Sichuan Province increased by 234 percent, but spending in Sichuan’s two Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures, Ganzi and Aba, which have seen numerous self-immolations since 2008, grew by 295 percent.”
The same website remarked: “Incredibly, the TAR and Xinjiang are beginning to rival the per capita domestic security expenditures of the United States. This is despite the fact that Chinese human resource and local security technology costs are far lower than in the West.”

Meeting the Tibetan delegates
While President Xi Jinping met with the NPC’s deputies from the Chongqing municipality to urge them to follow a ‘clean and upright political ecology’, Zhao Leji told the Tibetan delegation that “the campaign against the mentality and action of privilege seeking should be continued.”
According to Xinhua, he called “for actions against formalities for formalities' sake, bureaucratism and various kinds of misconduct, so as to keep the pressure on conduct problems.”
It is at least what was reported...

Drolkar alias Choekar

Stability of the borders with India
In the meantime the propaganda about the Indian borders continues.
Drolkar (earlier spelt Choekar), the deputy of Yume, north of the McMahon Line, said that she wants to build her hometown as beautiful as kalsang flower (a reference to the letter that she received from Xi Jinping).
"Great changes have been seen in my hometown," she affirmed.
She added: "We have highways, we have power, and new homes are being built as well. We also have stores, restaurants, and family inns right in the village. You even don't need cash when shopping, for everything can be paid via your cellphone,"
Border people are happy in China according to Drolkar with their “more and more convenient life in hometown.”
Drolkar said she will continue to safeguard the border region in future.
For half a century, her family grazes their sheep and cattle there to safeguard the border area, asserted Drolkar.
Xinhua commented that her story has deeply touched the heart of people across the country.
So, where is the need of the two top detectives of the Kingdom, Zhao and Zhao, monitoring Tibet affairs, is people are so happy?
And one should not forget the Third Zhao, General Zhao Zhongqi, the commander of the Western Theater Command, who looks after the Indian borders and is said to have started the conflict in Doklam last year.
The Tale of the Three Zhao is a sad story.

The human side to the Tibet issue

China has found a new definition for ‘corruption’.
In an article posted on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), responsible for the anti-corruption campaign, Chen Quanguo, Tibet’s Party Secretary, made a strange declaration.
Chen asserted: “Tibet's lack of oxygen and position at the frontline of fighting separatism did not mean it ignored the battle against corruption.”
It is true that very few heads have rolled in Tibet so far; only Le Dake, the head of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s (TAR) dreaded Security Department, responsible of collecting ‘hostile foreign intelligence’ in Tibet and in India, has been demoted (Le Dake’s name had appeared in 2008 as the official responsible for a military/security cell to watch over Tibetans in order to ‘save’ the Olympic Games from hostile Western attacks).
Chen Quanguo now says that the Party's fight against corruption also applies to officials "who follow the Dalai clique, go abroad to pay respects to the 14th Dalai Lama and send children or relatives to the schools run by the Dalai clique will also be punished.”
He announced that the TAR has already promulgated 15 regulations to investigate and severely punish party members who have no firm ideal and conviction and “have an incorrect view on minority's issues and profess no religious belief but secretly believe.”
Already in April, the State Council (China’s Cabinet) released a White Paper about Tibet’s development path. It was not the first WP published by the Chinese Government on the subject; in fact, it was the 13th since the State Council first attempted to justify its position about ‘ownership and human rights’ in September 1992.
The main characteristic of this last avatar was a violent attack against the Dalai Lama. One could ask, why assail the Tibetan leader at a time when many in China realise that the Buddhist monk is the best bet if Beijing is seriously trying to find a solution to the Tibetan issue.
The longish paper however warned: “The wheels of history roll forward and the tides of the times are irresistible. …Any person or force that attempts to resist the tide will simply be cast aside by history and by the people.”
Beijing was mistaken about the tides’ direction: democracy, freedom of thought and speech are accepted concepts everywhere on the planet, except in the Middle Kingdom which seems to have passed into reverse gear under Xi Jinping’s leadership.
The White Paper requested the Dalai Lama to ‘put aside his illusions’ about Tibet’s future status. The timing of the publication was linked to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In 1965, Tibet was divided into five areas, about one third becoming the TAR, while other parts of historic Tibet were officially integrated in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai; divide and rule at its best.
Today, the irony is that Beijing still insists that it will nominate the next Dalai Lama; the Communist Party seems absolutely unable to see how illogical its stand is. Poor Karl Marx must turn in his tomb!
In March, as China's 12th National People's Congress (NPC) opened with the usual fanfare at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Padma Choling, the TAR’s Chairman, had already created a flutter by declaring: “it's not up to the Dalai Lama to decide [about his own reincarnation].” The Tibetan official was objecting to the Dalai Lama’s earlier announcement saying that ‘[his] traditional religious role should cease with his death’.
Padma Choling affirmed that if the Dalai Lama decides about his reincarnation it will “upset the reincarnation system that has been honored for hundreds of years in Tibet and destabilize the Buddhist region.”
He added that the process: “should follow strict historical conventions and required religious rituals of the Tibetan Buddhism …and be approved by the central government,” in other words the Party.
Can you believe that according to Beijing, it is for the Communist Party of China to decide who will be the next Dalai Lama; it is the ‘tradition’, they affirm!
Choling affirmed that the Dalai Lama stopping his own lineage “is blasphemy against Tibetan Buddhism.”
How will the Communist Party choose the next Dalai Lama?
Probably like Gyaltsen Norbu, the current Panchen Lama anointed by the Party, by falsifying the dies thrown out a Golden Urn (incidentally, the rite had not been used for the previous 2 Dalai Lamas).
Chen’s declaration came as President Xi Jinping met with his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou to try to take a step forward in the Beijing-Taipei relationship. The South China Morning Post commented: “The talks, at a luxury hotel in the neutral venue of Singapore, lasted less than an hour but were heavy with symbolism.”
The two leaders, calling each other ‘Mr.’ shook hands during 70 seconds in front of hundreds of journalists and photographers from all over the world; Xi declared: "No force can pull us apart because we are brothers who are still connected by our flesh even if our bones are broken, we are a family in which blood is thicker than water.”
This raises a serious question: while efforts are being made to have a more ‘normal’ relationship over the Strait, the relations over the Himalayas are getting tenser.
Why can’t President Xi meet the Dalai Lama on ‘neutral’ ground and shake the monk’s hand for a few seconds? After all it is also in China’s interests to sort out the Tibetan issue; further, there is a serious human tragedy behind the 65-year old ‘liberation’ of Tibet.
This human aspect should be tackled first.
I can give the personal example of a close Tibetan friend of mine. As a small child, soon after her mother passed away, she was brought to India while her father stayed behind in Tibet; she went to Dharamsala in order to receive a good Tibetan education. That was 38 years ago.
In 2004, with other members of her family living in India, she had the opportunity to meet her father again, …for 4 hours after her father was literally smuggled into a remote monastery near the border between Nepal and Tibet.
Recently my friend’s father became critically ill; she was unable to speak to him, the communications between India and Tibet being cut.
Her father passed away a few days ago, but she could not even phone her family left in Tibet; and, of course, no question of attending the funeral. She eventually got some news through a relative in Nepal, who was able to contact the family on the other side of the Himalayas.
With Party officials like Mr. Chen who considers that any Tibetan official having a contact with their relatives in India is ‘corrupt’, the inhuman situation facing the Tibetans inside and outside Tibet is bound to deteriorate further.
Why can’t the Modi government take the initiative of bringing some humanity into the fate of the Tibetans?
If North Koreans can meet South Koreans at designated places, why can’t India and China agree on a few places along the borders where relatives could meet from time to time?
It seems a small thing, but it would be a great step forward, a human step.
A meeting between Xi and the Dalai Lama could help making a breakthrough in this direction. In fact, it would be a great victory for China which dreams to become ‘normal’.

China floats dangerously over troubled waters of South China Sea

My article China floats dangerously over troubled waters of South China Sea appeared in NitiCentral.

Here is the link...

Some watchers have predicted a ‘crack’, others a ‘collapse’, all might be wrong, but the fact remains that the Middle Kingdom has entered troubled waters, not only in the South China Sea.
Chinese-language Radio Free Asia (RFA) recently reported about a meeting between three foreign scholars and Wang Qishan, the all-powerful head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the organisation responsible for chasing the ‘tigers’ and the ‘flies’ and enforcing the Communist Party of China’s rule and discipline over the country.
Guess what? The ‘scholars’ were Japanese, a nation not always on best terms with the Chinese leadership.
The meeting took place in Zhongnanhai, the Party’s secluded headquarters, on April 23. The Japanese scholars were Stanford University academics: renowned political scientist Francis Fukuyama, economist Masahiko Aoki, and former CITIC Securities’ head, Tatsuhito Tokuchi.
According to RFA: “Wang was talking most of the time”, but later, Tatsuhito Tokuchi, Wang’s long-time friend, posted the speech of the CCDI’s boss on the Internet.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) said that the detailed report appeared on a website affiliated with the Tsinghua University’s Centre for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance. It was penned by Tokuchi, a member of the centre’s council.
RFA affirmed that “a key message that Wang passed on in this meeting was that his anticorruption campaign faces severe difficulties.”
It is difficult to comprehend why Wang needed to pass this sort of serious message through the Japanese academics. It probably means that all is not well in Wang’s current anti-corruption campaign, which started soon after Xi assumed power in November 2012.
Wang would have explained his dilemma to the Japanese:
“If I stop, the public will be disappointed and the result may be social turmoil. If I proceed, some cliques will fight back and even fight to the death.”
It is worrying for China’s stability if the anti-corruption campaign has reached such a stalemate. RFA commented:

“Another key message was that Wang promised his opponents that he will not seek a complete systematic reform that will fundamentally prevent corruption.”

It means that corruption is so deeply engrained in Chinese society that it is practically impossible to fully eradicate.
Nobody doubts that corrupt officials in China badly resent Wang’s campaign and are waiting to strike back.
RFA rightly commented:
“It is rare for a politburo standing committee member to have a discussion with visiting foreign scholars. Wang’s high-profile meeting with them and the posting of his talk through an official channel is a big taboo for high-ranking Party officials.”
It also means that today Wang can do what other officials have never done, i.e. speak to ‘foreigners’, knowing that his words will be immediately reported in China as well as abroad. With Xi, he still remains the most powerful man in the Kingdom, but for how long?
The situation is indeed serious. The social media has regularly reported Communist officials committing suicide. In May, Chen Tianhong, the head of a town in Jiangsu province, jumped to his death from the 21st floor of the government building. It was the third suicide of a Communist cadre officially reported by Chinese media in a month.
In March, four officials jumped to their deaths on three consecutive days.
The SCMP earlier wrote:

“The number of suicides recorded by officials has risen sharply in recent years, which analysts said was inevitably linked to Xi’s anti-graft campaign. More than 100 ‘tigers’ – corrupt senior officials – and many low-level cadres ‘flies’ have been purged.”

On May 29, China Military Online announced that the military authorities released a list of two more PLA generals who had been investigated: Maj. Gen. Fuyi, former commander of the Zhejiang Provincial Military Command and Maj. Gen. Zhou Minggui, vice director of the political department of the PLA Nanjing Military Region. This brought the tally to 35 officers of the rank of major general and above, investigated since the beginning of the year. One can easily imagine the resentment, the fear, the bitterness and the suspicion (against those who have managed to slip through the CCDI’s net), created by Wang’s campaign.
The SCMP affirmed:

“Since the PLA changed track earlier this year and started releasing updates on the graft crackdown in the military, five of the army’s seven area commands have lost their logistics chiefs to corruption investigations. The exceptions are Nanjing and Jinan.”

But the ‘purification’ process (or the purge in Marxist terms) is not only going on full swing in the PLA, all fields are ‘affected’.
According to the latest statistics, from November 2012 to April 2015, 124 top officials (alias ‘tigers’) in state-owned enterprises have been ‘investigated’ for corruption; State-run energy companies are said to account for a quarter of all fallen state-owned enterprise (SOE) executives.
China News Service reported that executives working in the mainland’s infrastructure sector were the second largest group to be probed by the top corruption watchdog CCDI.
Wang Tianpu, the second-highest ranked official of China’s largest oil refiner has recently been detained and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation have both lost their president or vice-president in the battle.
In the midst of this all-out internal war, Wang Qishan ruled out any chance of an independent judiciary.
In his encounter with the Japanese scholars, he admitted that the Communist Party was struggling, it was not easy: ‘it is like a doctor operating on himself’.
According to Tatsuhito Tokuchi, Wang mentioned the rare case of a Russian surgeon removing his own appendix to illustrate the difficulty of ‘self-renewal’ and ‘self-purification’: “We realise that it is only a beginning … and we need to keep going,” commented Wang.
Zhuang Deshui, an anti-corruption expert at Peking University told the SCMP:
“The authorities might have thought in the beginning that hitting ‘tigers and flies’ would have some deterrent effect. But as the number of corruption cases and the ranks of purged officials kept growing, certain interest groups and senior officials – maybe even including those more senior than Zhou – were also involved.”
In its May issue, Trend Magazine, based in Hong Kong, discussed the colloquial term ‘Iron Hat King’:
“The CCP likes to play political games by using argot to criticise someone without disclosing his name.”
The Chinese media said that there is no ‘Iron Hat King’ in the anticorruption campaign. It means that there is no king who will forever enjoy their royal immunity; in other words, even former top officials can be subjected to corruption charges. The article suggested that former President Jiang Zemin is the ‘Iron Hat King’. His court (or clique) comprises of Zeng Qinghong (the ‘Qing Prince’), a former Politburo’s Standing Committee member, Bo Xilai, the ‘crown prince’, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, the Central Military Commission’s members and Zhou Yongkang, the former Security czar, today in jail.
It would mean that the CCDI is coming close to Jiang, the former President. That would explain why it is not easy for Wang and Xi.
The democratic tradition in India, though sometimes chaotic, brings far more stability to the nation. When an ‘Iron Hat King’ or even a Party is too corrupt, he is just removed by the masses at the time of the next elections. It is what happened to the Indian Dynasty last year.

Kill the Chicken to Scare the Monkeys: CCDI in Tibet

Applauding the Party at the Tibet People's Congress

A few days ago, China releases a long list of PLA commanders under investigation for alleged corruption.
The South China Morning Post wrote: "The military made a rare move by listing 16 senior commanders to come under investigation for graft over the last year. The People's Liberation Army has singled out corrupt individual officers over the past two years but never so many at one time. The list includes familiar names as well as new additions, including two from the logistics department, a PLA unit that oversees military spending."
The list of the 16 generals was made public.
The situation is different in Tibet.

Yesterday, The Global Times announced: "Several officials who participated in the illegal underground 'Tibetan Independence' organization, provided intelligence to the Dalai Lama clique and assisted activities that would harm national security, were put under investigation in 2014." The mouthpiece of the Party quoted 'authorities' in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
However, no names were given.
Why this double-standard between Party cadres in Tibet and PLA generals?
Wang Gang, an official of the Central Committee of Discipline Inspection (CCDI) stated that "15 officials were punished by the Communist Party of China (CPC) for violating Party and political discipline in 2014."
Who are they?
We are only told that there are "Six 'typical' cases of Party members and civil servants violating discipline and 45 officials who abandoned their positions and neglected their duties".
Did they visit Dharamsala during their holidays? Wang would not say, though we are told that they have been severely punished.
Ye Dongsong, head of the CCDI inspection team who visited Tibet in November 2014 added: "Some officials failed to take a firm stand on issues related to the Tibet question and some grass-root officials in the region were found to be seriously corrupt."
The CCDI official suggested that the Tibetan regional government should focus "on neutralizing separatists and maintaining social stability, cracking down on corruption and strictly monitoring projects in the region."
It looks to me  like 'killing a few chicken for scaring the monkeys', as the Chinese proverb says.
Last week, during the 'Two Meetings' (the annual Tibet People's Congress and Tibet People's Political Consultative Conference), all the big shots were around. It probably means that the 15 black sheep who dared admiring (or worshiping) the Dalai Lama, are relatively junior officials posted at the county level.
[Three days after writing this post, Xinhua, quoting the CCDI's website, gave a name. It was announced that "Losong Tsering, secretary of the CPC committee of Tibet's Transportation Department, is the subject of an investigation relating to 'serious disciplinary violations', according to the regional discipline inspection commission. The commission did not elaborate on the 'violations'." Losong Tsering served earlier as Party Secretary of Shannan (Lhoka) Prefecture from 2006 to 2011].

The Fashion Show

By the way, Caixin.com reported that "Two-Thirds of Provinces Say They Missed GDP Growth Targets in 2014," and added: "At least two-thirds of China's provinces, regions and municipalities failed to meet their targets for gross domestic product growth for last year, prompting regional governments to lower their projections for 2015."
Interestingly, among the 22 provinces and regions which have released macroeconomic statistics for 2014, only Tibet managed to meet the target of 11 percent growth.
One could add, thanks to the tourism boom.
This year too, the Two Meetings witnessed the usual fashion show.
Please note that some of the 'models' were not really politically correct as they wore animal fur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Xi and his rogue Generals – Will PLA cleanup spillover borders?

My article Xi and his rogue Generals – Will PLA cleanup spillover borders? appeared in NitiCentral.

Here is the link...

A few days ago, The PLA Daily announced that there will be no sanctuary for corruption in the Chinese defence forces.
Quoting the flagship newspaper of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Xinhua explained that “in the battle against corruption, there will be no privilege or sanctuary of impunity for anyone.”
The PLA strongly denied that “continuing the campaign against corruption could destabilise people’s morale and public trust.”
On the contrary, it asserted that the campaign would continue: “The battle against corruption has entered a crucial tug-of-war stage; the anti-graft campaign is in line with the people’s expectations and as the campaign deepens, …the Communist Party of China (CPC) and political environment in China will become even healthier. The anti-corruption efforts will only boost the morale among the Party, the military and the public; not undermine it.”
The message is clear, the cleansing campaign in the PLA is here to stay; moreover, in the present battle, there cannot be any safe haven for the corrupt.
Bill Bishop, the author of the The Sinocism China Newsletter argued that it is not a usual purge campaign: “I am quite convinced it is a mistake to call the corruption crackdown under Xi a ‘campaign’. …I think people have been far too dismissive of some of the changes Wang Qishan [Politburo’s Standing Committee member] is making within CCDI [Central Commission for Disciple Inspection] system. …Xi and Wang are less than 24 months into this and can’t hit everything at once, especially as Xi is still consolidating power. It may fail, but the crackdown is already much deeper and longer than almost anyone expected, and the signs are that it is intensifying, not slowing, and looks to be still in its early days inside the PLA.”
The battle is indeed intensifying; the Xinhua piece noted “the anti-decadence movement is still grave and complicated and will inevitably meet some kind of resistance.”
President Xi Jinping knows very well that the question is not to fix one or two adversaries, such Bo Xilai or Zhou Yongkang, the former Chongking Party boss and security Tsar respectively; the present move has to go much deeper, if the CCP is to survive. Many historical studies have shown that it the crucial point where the former Soviet Union collapsed; it is the struggle for survival of a system. It is even more vital for the defence forces.
Whether Xi and Wang will succeed or not is another issue. The PLA Daily threatens: “The anti-corruption campaign has already touched senior ‘tigers’ like Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou, and who will be left untouchable?”
General Xu Caihou was the Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission before retiring in 2013; he has now been booked as one of the main culprits.
Reuters wrote about the modus operandi: “Luxury cars filled with gold bars were given away as bribes by a former senior military officer implicated in a graft case investigators say involves 30 billion yuan (5 billion US $).”
An assistant of Xu Caihou, Gu Junshan who was deputy director of the PLA’s logistics department, is now suspected of having ‘offered’ hundreds of military positions on behalf of his boss.
Quoting the Phoenix Weekly, a magazine with close ties with the Central government, Reuters says: “Sources close to the top of the logistics department said Gu took bribes worth about 600 million yuan (US $ 100 million) in return for his part in a scam involving a total of 30 billion yuan.”
General Gu was apparently obsessed with gold, especially gold statues of Buddha. The magazine found out that when he wanted to offer a gift, Gu would load up a Mercedes with gold bars and then simply send the car keys to the beneficiary; up to 100kg of gold could be ‘offered’ that way.
If some generals have contributed to Xu’s and Gu’s schemes, it means that they had ways to recover their ‘investment’.
According to the Chinese press, Gu’s and Xu’s cases are closely connected.
Another general under investigation is Maj. Gen, Dai Weimin, vice-president of the PLA Nanjing Institute of Politics. Caixin, the Beijing-based financial publicationsaid that Dai was detained around mid-November for allegations related to land and infrastructure projects at the institute’s Shanghai campus. According to the same publication, housing and infrastructure contracts are the most common areas where ‘gifts’ take place.
While recently inspecting the Nanjing Military Area Command, Xi Jinping, who is also CMC’s Chairman, warned that the PLA should ‘fully clear up the bad influence left [by Xu] in the army’s ideological, political and organizational work as well as the style of work.”
Can China defend its borders with this style of work?
That is why President Xi will do everything to change the current state of affairs. While naming Xu and Gu, Xi said: “officers and soldiers should firmly follow the command of the CMC at any time and under any circumstances”. Follow the Party is the recurrent motto! But will the Party survive? It is too early to say.
The same Caixin.com announced that the first female ‘tiger’ was under investigation on suspicion of bribery. Maj. Gen. Gao Xiaoyan used to be political commissar and CCDI’s representative in the PLA Information Engineering University before her arrest.
She is suspected of taking big amounts while serving as political commissar at the PLA’s 309th Hospital from 2005 to 2012. Some rumors said that she was also intimately close to Gu Junshan.
A native of Shanxi, the province which is topping arrests for corruption, Gao joined the army when she was 17. She had been responsible for major construction projects at the hospital. It included building 15 dormitories and a garage, which could accommodate 1,000 vehicles.
If many of the senior posts have been ‘purchased’, this does not speak well for the level of preparedness of the Chinese Armed Forces.
Closer to us in India, is Lt. Gen. Yang Jinshan, who for years commanded the Tibet Military District, opposite the Indian troops posted in Arunachal. He ‘did’ so well that he reached the ‘Marxist’ heaven, the Central Committee of the CCP.
In 2005, Yang (a Han, like all the senior PLA officers) was promoted to the rank of major general and in July 2011, he became a lieutenant general. He took over the Command of the Tibet Military District in 2009 and 3 years later, he was elected as a member of the powerful Central Committee.
In June 2013, General Yang was transferred on promotion to Chengdu as a Deputy Commander of the Chengdu Military Region, from where he oversaw the operations in Tibet.
In October 2014, he was suddenly expelled from the Central Committee ‘for serious disciplinary violations’.
Apparently, General Yang’s arrest is also linked to Xu Caihou’s wrongdoings.
In the meantime, the CMC warned that ideological struggles within the PLA were ‘acute and complicated’. The Global Times asserted: “Military reform has entered ‘uncharted waters’ with concerns growing that reform could be impeded by ‘structural problems’.”
Quite worrying!
One should not be surprised if some disgruntled generals try to enter into Indian Territory in Ladakh or Arunachal, just to divert the attention of the leadership.