‘Tibet’ Tiger’s Heads are Rolling

General Wang Jianping in Tibet in 2014

Reuters reported that General Wang Jianping has been placed “under investigation on suspicion of taking bribes.”
According to the news agency, it is the “first incumbent senior military official to be targeted in the China’s anti-graft campaign.”
The information was confirmed by the spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defence (MND).
At the time of his arrest, General Wang was deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department under the Central Military Commission.
Yang Yujun, the MND's spokesman (recently promoted Senior Colonel) announced during his monthly press conference that Wang was “under probe by military prosecutors”.
I had mentioned this in August (the news had then leaked to The South China Morning Post).
Wang is the first full general in service to be investigated since President Xi Jinping launched his crackdown on corruption in 2012.
Wang earlier served as Commander of the 1.2-million-strong People’s Armed Police Force (PAPF); before that he was posted in Tibet for several years.

Gen Wang's return to Tibet in 2014
In June 2014, I mentioned that he visited Lhasa, his old fiefdom, as PAPF Commander.
Wang inspected the TAR PAP’s training camp, a traffic police detachment, Tibet’s Forest Armed Police Corps, the 117 Police Division and a detachment of Ngari Police. According to The Tibet Daily, he wanted to get a detailed understanding of the situation.
The Chinese newspapers reported that Wang Jianping acknowledged the success achieved by the Armed Police's Tibet Corps and the Armed Police Forces and asked all the armed police officers and men to understand the serious and complicated situation that Tibet is facing. He told them to strengthen the police force for war preparation and continue the good job of building up (the police forces).
Gen Wang also asked the Force to ensure the completion of every task, giving first priority to the tasks that need to be dealt with urgently, providing a strong support for Tibet’s continuous stability, long term stability and comprehensive stability.
‘Stability’ was and is the main priority in Tibet.
Walking to the Potala Palace Square’s Police Station, Gen Wang said that the police should understand the ‘Tibet’ work; for example, the duty of the Police Station, the range of service, the promotion the urban grid management.



Other heads is rolling
Yesterday, it was also announced that China had decided to prosecute for graft, a former ‘senior spy catcher’: “Ma Jian, once a vice minister at China's Ministry of State Security, is the most senior security official to be investigated since former domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang was ensnared in a graft scandal and jailed for life last year.”
More interestingly, as far as the ‘Tibet’ Tigers’ heads are concerned, Le Dake, who headed of the State Security Department in Tibet from 2004 to 2013, has been found guilty of bribery.
It was announced in a statement posted on the official microblog account of the Zhengzhou City Intermediate People's Court. Zhengzhou is located in central China's Henan Province.
Reuters said “It was not possible to reach Le or a representative for comment.”
Obviously!
Quoting the Court, Xinhua noted that Le was fined 2 million yuan ($290,000) “and his illegal gains shall be recovered and turned over to the State treasury.”
Le Dake was a deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Regional People's Congress. He had taken advantage of “various official posts from 2005 to 2014 to seek benefits for others in project contracting and official promotions and reassignment.”
The amount of bribe is said to be over 18.7 million yuan.
The Court showed leniency “as Le confessed to his crimes, expressed remorse and voluntarily returned his illegal gains.”
Le Dake had become infamous in Tibet when he organized the repression on a large scale after the unrest on the plateau in the Spring of 2008 (at the time of the Olympics Games in Beijing).
The Epoch Times, a publication of the Falun Gong group had reported in July 2015: “A leading official in the administrative region of Tibet, who was formerly the most powerful security official there before becoming deputy of the legislature, was purged recently.”
The newspaper noted that the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection “didn’t go into the specifics of Le’s case …But overseas Chinese news websites, attuned to the subtleties of political struggle in China, noted Le’s deep and long-standing ties with the notorious Zeng Qinghong, the well-known henchman of former Party leader Jiang Zemin.”
The case against Le Dake would have been linked with General Yang Jinshan, a former commander of the Party’s military forces in Tibet (and later Deputy Commander of the Chengdu Military Region): “Yang, in turn was a client of [General] Xu Caihou, formerly one of the most powerful men in the military who was purged and died last year.”
Duowei, a Chinese news company remarked: “Le’s removal seemed sudden, since he was seen going about his normal routine just two days before anti-corruption investigators made their move. Le had been in the regime’s public security apparatus for almost his entire career. He started as a public security officer in the provincial branch in Jiangxi, and eventually headed Tibet’s public security department until 2012.”
Le hails from a village in Jiangxi province, which is located near Zeng Qinghong’s own village: it how Le started his career under Zeng’s patronage in Jiangxi.
According to Bowen Press, an independent publishing house based in Texas, “The suppression of the Tibetan independence movement by the local public security bureau was the most severe during Le’s tenure as public security chief.”
One question remains: what happened to Lt Gen Yang Jinshan, the other bid ‘Tibet’ Tiger whose head also rolled?


The Fate of the Generals
Exactly a year ago I wrote: “Fate is strange. It is especially true in Communist China. In 2014, Lt Gen Yang Jinshan, a former Commander of the Tibet Military District of the Chengdu Military Region (MR) was a rising star in the PLA and the CPC.
He had been promoted as a member of the Party's Central Committee, which was not the case of his direct boss, General Li Zuocheng, the commander of the Chengdu Military Region.
Yang was therefore 'senior' to his boss, Li Zuocheng, in the Party hierarchy.
Today, Yang Jinshan is languishing jail, being 'investigated' and his boss Gen Li Zuocheng is tipped to become the first chief of a newly-formed land force command.
What a reversal of fate!
The courts have not announced as yet the fate of General Yang, while General Wang and Le Dake have now been informed where they will spend the next decade.


The case of Pema Thinley
Incidentally, two senior Tibetan cadres have been demoted during the last reshuffle of the Party’s Standing Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
Pema Thinley (or Choeling) the senior most Tibetan in the Party and lonely Tibetan member of the Central Committee is no more Deputy Secretary of the TAR, though he remains Chairman of the Regional Congress.
The second Tibetan head to roll was Gonpo Tashi’s, an influential Tibetan, who was the boss of the regional United Front Department. What happened to him is not clear.
And as I mentioned in a previous post, PLA officers have no place anymore in the Party’s regional Standing Committee of the TAR.
Quite a revolution!

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.