By Shannon Tiezzi
The PLA releases a list of 14 generals under investigation for corruption, signalling a sea change.
On Monday, China’s military authority released a list of 14 generals under investigation or already convicted for corruption. The release, timed to come just before China’s annual parliamentary meeting, provides further evidence that anti-corruption efforts in the PLA are gaining steam. Monday’s announcement followed the release of a similar list of 16 military officers under investigation in mid-January.
The release of the list was accompanied by a flurry of state media coverage underlining the PLA’s determination to weed out corruption. A piece posted on the Ministry of Defense website argued that the announcement “makes [the] PLA more trustworthy.” That article also points out a key difference between Monday’s list and the list of names released in January: the former list included names that had already been reported on by official and unofficial media outlets. The March 2 list, on the contrary, included names being linked to anti-graft probes for the first time. Chinese analysts interviewed in the article stressed that releasing the names of corrupt officials could become standard practice for the PLA – a way of getting out ahead of media reports and boosting PLA transparency.
The list includes high-ranking officials from the joint logistics departments of various Military Area Commands as well as a number of deputy political commissars and deputy directors from various political departments. As the New York Times notes, this effectively captures China’s two main worries when it comes to PLA corruption: embezzlement from the logistics department (which handles procurement and other contracts) as well as position-buying and bribery in the political departments.
Read the full story at The Diplomat