The announcement comes just days before the Communist Party’s Central Committee meets in Beijing.
Two of China’s highest-ranking officers and seven other senior military officials have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and the military on suspicion of serious misconduct linked to corruption, according to the country’s Defence Ministry.
He Weidong, China’s second-highest-ranking general, and navy admiral Miao Hua, the Chinese military’s former top political officer, are the latest senior military officials to be targeted in a campaign against corruption in the People’s Liberation Army.
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General He’s removal is the first of a sitting commander in the Central Military Commission since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
He had not been seen in public since March, and the investigation into his activities was not previously disclosed by Chinese authorities.
In the announcement of their expulsion on Friday, General He, Admiral Miao and the seven other senior military officials were accused of having “seriously violated Party discipline and are suspected of serious duty-related crimes involving an extremely large amount of money”.
Defence Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said in a statement that the alleged offences were “of a grave nature, with extremely detrimental consequences”, and lauded the purge as a “significant achievement in the Party and military’s anticorruption campaign”.
The expulsion of 68-year-old He has implications beyond the military as the former commander also sat on the 24-member Politburo, the ruling Communist Party’s second-highest echelon of power.
One of two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, He was the third-most powerful commander in the People’s Liberation Army and has been considered a close associate of President Xi Jinping, the army’s commander-in-chief.
Admiral Miao was previously removed from the commission in June after being put under investigation for “serious violations of discipline”.
The announcement of the expulsions comes just days before the Communist Party’s Central Committee, an elite body of 200-plus senior officials, is due to hold its Fourth Plenum in Beijing.
More personnel decisions, such as the expulsion and replacement of Central Committee members, are expected to be formalised at the meeting, which starts on Monday.
The other military officials named with He and Miao include He Hongjun, a former senior official at the PLA Political Work Department, Wang Xiubin of the Central Military Commission’s Joint Operations Command Centre, former Eastern Theatre Command commander Lin Xiangyang, and two former political commissars of the PLA Army and Navy.
Observers noted that many of these officials have been missing from public view for several months.
Former People’s Armed Police commander Wang Chunning, also named in the statement, was removed from the national legislature last month, along with three other PLA generals.
Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said this “type of shake-up” in the Chinese military leadership had now happened so often “that it’s sort of become more normalised than before”.
“In that sense, it seems to be part of the progression of Xi Jinping’s rule,” Chong told Al Jazeera.
“It can also be read as a further consolidation of power by Xi Jinping and, in that sense, it would suggest that the party is becoming more centralised and control over the party’s mechanisms is becoming stronger than ever,” he said.
