Can China eradicate corruption in its military?

A series of corruption cases in the Chinese military serve as a reminder that decades of
practice and culture of corruption still flourish within the PLA.

Try as he may, it is clear that Chinese President Xi Jinping cannot rid the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the insidious corruption that, in some ways, defines its functioning far more than warships and nuclear warheads ever could, writes
The Diplomat.

A series of corruption cases in the Chinese military serve as a reminder that decades of practice and culture of corruption still flourish within and among the ranks and relationships of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Not long ago, we read about two Chinese generals being investigated by the disciplinary authorities of the Chinese Communist Party, thus merely repeating reports that have been regularly published in Chinese media for years about abuses in the military. Promotion comes at a price. Even basic recruitment into the PLA involves paying bribes, sources report. Luxury properties, both in China and abroad, are owned by relatives of the PLA’s highest-ranking officers.
Procurement—always a risky but fertile ground for illegal dealings—is
reportedly riddled with fraud, inflated contract bids, and other forms of
bribery. Real estate scandals are also increasingly public. There are even
reports of rigged admissions to PLA training schools and tests overseen by
officers.

In one such case, the disgraced officials are members of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Lieutenant General You Haitao and Vice Admiral Li
Pengcheng. They have been removed from China’s top legislature, which provides
for future action against them if necessary.

You Haitao was
deputy commander of the PLA’s Southern War Region. As such, he had major
responsibilities for a range of military operations not only for the provinces
of southern and southwestern mainland China, but also for the South Seas Fleet,
Hong Kong, and Macau. This put him in a position of power over three of the
most politically and militarily sensitive regions in modern-day China: islands
in the South China Sea, which are in constant dispute between China and its
neighbors; Hong Kong, which has struggled to resist Beijing's control; and the
border areas of China and Myanmar, unstable and unpredictable due to the
insurgency in Myanmar.

A report by the
US Army’s Office of Foreign Military Studies suggested that these multiple and
simultaneous challenges had pushed the Southern Theater Command “to its
operational limits.”

He also held
international talks. In November 2019, he met with then-Chief of Staff of the
Pakistani Army Qamar Javed Bajwa at the Pakistani military headquarters in
Rawalpindi to discuss “matters of mutual interest.” That the then-disgraced
lieutenant general met with the Pakistani army chief, a position arguably more
powerful than that of the Pakistani prime minister, is an illustration of the
power and influence he wielded, all with Xi Jinping’s blessing.

Another PLA
officer suspected of corruption was Li Pengcheng, commander of the PLA Navy’s
South Sea Fleet (in other words, the naval chief of the Southern Theater
Command). The vice admiral was out of the public eye until the opening ceremony
of a naval cooperation exercise with the Singapore Navy at China’s Ma Xie Naval
Base in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province. Li was one of the commanders of the
ceremony along with his colleague, Rear Admiral Kwan Hon Chuong.

Sources report
that Li is a native of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province in far
northeast China. He is said to have risen rapidly in the PLAN. He is associated
with China's strategic and modernized naval development.

In August last
year, the South China Morning Post reported that the PLA Rocket Force had
punished three prominent military engineering universities, Xi'an University of
Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Southwest Jiaotong University, by
banning them from participating in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket
Force procurement activities for three years for their involvement in
"bidding conspiracy" and "bid rigging".

Given the
long-standing cooperation between these universities and the defense technology
sector, this decision is likely to affect China's military-industrial research
and development system.

According to
reports from Future Network and the Military Procurement Network, the
Procurement Bureau of the PLA Rocket Force Logistics Department issued a notice
stating that Xi'an University of Technology was found guilty of "bidding
conspiracy", while Xi'an Jiaotong University and Southwest Jiaotong
University were found guilty of "bidding conspiracy". As a result,
all three universities have been banned from participating in any procurement
activities in all product categories within the Rocket Force until August 16,
2027.

The PLA Rocket
Force is a newly established branch of the PLA, renamed from the Second
Artillery Corps, officially established on December 31, 2015. It possesses a
strategic rocket force and a number of advanced tactical conventional missile
units.

According to
public information, Xi'an University of Technology, originally a military
engineering school and one of China's "Seven Sons of National
Defense", is the only public university in the northwest region with an
Academy of Weapons Science and Technology. The university has strong research
and development capabilities in military engineering fields such as optical
engineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering.

Xi'an Jiaotong
University, a national key university directly under the Ministry of Education,
was jointly established by Shaanxi Province and the State Administration of
Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Its military engineering
disciplines include aircraft design and engineering, nuclear engineering, and
nuclear technology. The university was recognized as one of the "Top Ten
Collective Institutions in Public Procurement of National Universities",
but was soon excluded from the procurement system of the Rocket Force due to
its involvement in bid-rigging. Located in Chengdu, Sichuan, Southwest Jiaotong
University is China's first engineering institution of higher learning, with a
nationally ranked transportation engineering discipline and a school of
aerospace engineering, giving the university considerable prestige in the field
of military-industrial research.

President Xi
Jinping stressed that the Rocket Force is a key force in China's strategic
deterrence, a strategic support for China's great power status, and an
important cornerstone for safeguarding national security.

The incident
comes as China’s military procurement system faces a severe anti-corruption
crackdown. Since 2023, the Rocket Force and its procurement departments have
become the focus of corruption investigations, and several high-ranking
generals and military-industrial executives have been investigated and removed
from office, including former defense ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, as
well as Rocket Force commander Li Yuchao and Chief of Staff Sun Jinming. The
events highlight serious problems within the PLA’s procurement and equipment
sector and demonstrate the government’s determination to step up
anti-corruption efforts within the military.

Given that these
universities are banned from participating in the Rocket Force’s procurement
activities, analysts believe this is an important step in increasing the
transparency of the procurement of national defense technology and combating
unfair competition. In the future, more misconduct related to
military-industrial research and procurement could be uncovered, further
regulating the military procurement market.

The Chinese
public is eagerly following such cases. And they know that what is publicly
known is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Ordinary Chinese citizens do not
accept the depth of corruption that permeates the Chinese military, but they do
not know how to address it. Xi allows the problem to be regularly exposed in
official Chinese media, suggesting a certain level of transparency. At the same
time, however, the systemic nature of the patronage culture within the PLA is
so difficult to eradicate that it calls into question the legitimacy of both
the CCP and the government.

The PLA is
central to the story of the birth of the People’s Republic of China. The PRC
was not born through some regular political process, but at the end of a long
conflict of military struggle with the ruling Kuomintang, led by General Chiang
Kai-shek. As such, many in China want to respect the PLA—it gives them
something to believe in, even more than the Communist Party itself. But stories
of wealth flowing to (mostly male) top officers and their families undermine
trust in both the CCP and the PLA.

Over the years,
a steady stream of carefully curated news about China’s crackdown on corrupt
military leaders has helped Xi on the domestic front. Promises made, promises
kept, some feel. At least, they say, Xi can be said to be confronting the
problem, exposing the worst of it, and bearing the consequences for those who
betrayed the trust of the party and the people.

But military
corruption in China is a decades-old scourge—one that, according to multiple
sources, a PLA general, the son of a former Chinese president, spoke openly
about in late 2011 and early 2012.

At the time,
General Liu Yuan, son of Liu Shaoqi, was “the most powerful official in the
PLA’s General Logistics Department.” According to notes recorded during a
speech to about 600 of his officers, Liu told the assembled audience: “No
country can defeat China… Only our own corruption can destroy us and cause our
armed forces to be defeated without a fight.”

Efforts to crack
down on corruption in the PLA also have a long history. In the late 1980s and
throughout the 1990s, foreign expatriate and diplomatic communities railed
against the deep ties the Chinese military had with Chinese companies. Some of
the business relationships involved date back to the 1920s. Then, in 1998, the
Chinese government issued a directive requiring the PLA to divest itself of its
business enterprises and hand over what had not been seized by the end of the
year. The decision was made at a high level, among the country’s top party and
military leaders. More than a quarter of a century later, the 1998 directive
appears to have done little more than reorganize the processes by which those
in power can personally profit from their positions. Relations have not so much
faltered as reorganized. A new paradigm is at work in Xi’s China, but the
mechanism by which military leaders can profit is supported by a culture that
is hard to break away from. It is simply difficult—if not impossible—to gain
promotion and rise to positions of power in the PLA without paying the
necessary bribes. And once you pay the system, the temptation to profit from it
becomes even greater.

It is important
to highlight one footnote in this story. Western democracies and other allies
should not underestimate China's military capabilities just because the PLA is
tarnished. There is much in China that is affected by corruption of one kind or
another, and that has not stopped the country from becoming one of the leading
economic players in the world.