China’s military has suspended Miao Hua, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), the top decision-making body of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in a widening corruption investigation that is shaking the upper echelons of the armed forces, Bloomberg reports.
Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian announced Thursday that Miao is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” a term typically signifying a corruption probe. The CMC, headed by President Xi Jinping, comprises six members, including two vice chairmen and three other members, with Miao being one of the latter and considered a close ally of Xi.
This latest suspension adds to a series of high-profile removals from the military. Since last summer, over a dozen senior officials have been ousted as part of an investigation into military hardware purchases dating back to 2017. This probe has already led to the expulsion of China’s two most recent defense ministers from the Communist Party, as well as several officials linked to the secretive Rocket Force, responsible for China’s nuclear arsenal.
The ministry strongly denied earlier reports that Defense Minister Dong Jun was also under investigation, denouncing them as “pure fabrication” and expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with the alleged slander.
Miao, a former political commissar of the PLA Navy, held a non-combat role focused on party discipline and military loyalty. His career path, rising through the ranks of political officers, and his shared time in Fujian province with Xi Jinping in the late 1990s, have fueled speculation about the extent and depth of the ongoing investigation.
Experts, like Dylan Loh, assistant professor of politics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, suggest that the probe reveals deeper systemic issues within the PLA, posing a challenge even for Xi Jinping’s centralized power structure.
