China expels No. 2 general and 8 others from the Communist Party in anti-corruption drive

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BEIJING (AP) — China's second-highest ranking general and eight other senior officials have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and the military on suspicion of serious misconduct linked to corruption, the Defense Ministry said Friday.

He Weidong, who was the vice-chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, is the most senior official targeted so far in an ongoing anti-graft drive against Chinese military leaders.

The nine officials are suspected of extremely serious crimes involving exceptionally large sums of money, Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said in a statement posted online.

Their cases have been investigated and referred to military prosecutors for review and prosecution, Zhang said.

Government anti-corruption drives have become a signature policy of Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012. Thousands of officials have been purged including high-profile political rivals.

He, who was elevated to the Central Military Commission in 2022, has not been seen in public for months — often the first indication an official is in trouble. The announcement Friday was the first confirmation of what had happened to him.

He also was one of the 24 members of the Politburo, the second-highest Communist Party body after the 7-member Politburo Standing Committee.

He was formerly head of the Eastern Theater Command, which holds primary responsibility for operations against Taiwan should hostilities break out.

The eight other dismissed officials include the director of the Central Military Commission's political work department, Miao Hua, who was put under investigation last November.

The commission, chaired by Xi, is the top military body in China.

“(The offenses) were of grave nature, with extremely harmful consequences,” Zhang said. He did not provide details of the alleged crimes.

The announcement came just days before the party holds a major meeting in Beijing to map out the country's goals for the next five years.

Eight of the nine military leaders removed Friday were members of the party's Central Committee, the 205-member body that meets next week.

Expelling them from the Communist Party clears the way for appointing replacements on the committee, said Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“This move is a political show of force and a practical step to elevate non-voting alternates into full members of the Central Committee,” he said.

High-ranking officers occupy an elevated position in Chinese politics and can command extensive privileges, official and unofficial.

Analysts say the anti-corruption campaign, which is popular with the public, has also been used to enforce loyalty to Xi among party and government officials.

In June last year, China announced that former Defense Minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor Wei Fenghe were expelled from the Communist Party and accused of corruption.

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Leung reported from Hong Kong.