China expelled two disgraced former generals from the Communist Party for corruption — one of them posthumously — saying the pair’s disloyalty and greed had damaged the military, state media said on Tuesday.
In two brief and near-identical dispatches, the official Xinhua news agency said the investigation into Fang Fenghui, a senior general who sat on China’s top military body, had concluded and his case passed on to prosecutors.
The other general, Zhang Yang, who sat alongside Fang on the Central Military Commission until both stood down last year, committed suicide in November while being investigated for corruption.
Xinhua said central party and military authorities had sanctioned the recovery of Zhang’s proceeds of corruption. It said the two men were suspected of giving and receiving bribes and held huge amounts of unexplained financial assets.
China’s military, which is the world’s largest and is in the midst of an ambitious modernisation campaign, has been a central focus of President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-corruption efforts.
Both men were influential military figures and their downfall was seen as part of a military leadership reshuffle that enabled Xi to install trusted allies and consolidate control over the armed forces.
China’s ruling Communist Party expelled two top former Generals, including one who committed suicide following allegations of corruption, and referred the graft case of the second general who served as the PLA chief to a military court for trial, state media reported Tuesday.
Gen. Fang Fenghui, 67, headed the 2-million-strong People’s Liberation Army till last year. He was also the former chief of the Central Military Commission, which is now headed by President Xi Jinping.
The CMC is the overall high command of the Chinese armed forces. The former general has been expelled from the party and his case has been transferred to a military court to answer graft allegations, state-run China Daily quoted the military statement as saying on Tuesday. Also Gen. Zhang Yang was expelled from the party and assets related to the illegal activity have been confiscated, it said.
