FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BEIJING – A month and a half after his disappearance, the Chinese authorities announced that Defense Minister Li Shangfu had been removed. There is no explanation in Xinhua Agency’s statement on the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. General Li Shangfu was last seen in public on August 29 at a peace and security forum in Beijing. Then nothing more. An exit from the scene without explanation, as happened in June to Qin Gang, the foreign minister who ended up in a black hole in June and then was removed in July with a single line of press release. Both are also united by today’s note: Both were stripped of their status as State Councilors.
In mid-September, American intelligence announced that General Li was being investigated and arrested for corruption. Beijing remained silent. How he remained silent on the reasons for the dismissal of the Foreign Minister, who, according to rumors circulating on social media, had committed an extramarital affair with a journalist.
General Li, 65, came to head the defense last March. A decision that was interpreted as a challenge to the United States, since Li Shangfu had been on Washington’s blacklist since 2018 and was subject to formal sanctions that prevented him from entering American territory. The reason for the American ban is that when Li headed the People’s Liberation Army’s “Equipment Acquisition and Development Department,” he negotiated with Moscow to purchase Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 missiles.
The general, who was promoted to minister, had refused any contact with American opponents, even though the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, had asked him for a meeting several times.
It was a summer full of poison and secrets in Beijing. In addition to the dismissals of the two ministers who had been promoted just earlier in the year, the heads of two generals, Li Yuchao and Liu Guangbin, commander and deputy of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces, fell. The reason given for these two officials was corruption.
It is possible that the Minister of Defense has also fallen into disgrace due to embezzlement: the Ministry of Military Supplies was the subject of an investigation that began a few months ago, and Defense had, strangely, said that the investigation would go back to the past In 2017, when Li Shangfu had just taken over procurement and material procurement for the armed forces. The rejection of two newly appointed ministers raises doubts about the selection system of Chinese ministers: how is it possible that in a closed and harsh regime like Beijing’s, no one has previously investigated their past behavior?
Rahm Emanuel, American ambassador to Tokyo, wrote about missile generals, now secretary of defense…”