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| Ethnic Kokang soldier stand guard in the Myanmar-China border town of Laukkai in 2009 |
By Ankit Panda
Major General Huang Xing’s alleged involvement in supporting Myanmar’s Kokang rebels puts China in a tricky position.
Late last week, the South China Morning Post reported on a fairly major development in China’s ongoing anti-corruption crusade against senior officials in the People’s Liberation Army. One of the top PLA officials being investigated for corrupt practices under the campaign, Major General Huang Xing of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, stands accused of leaking state secrets and assisting the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), an ethnic Kokang rebel force (though he faces a formal charge of “committing fraud”). The case, as my colleague Shannon noted on Friday, is significant given the unusual nature of Huang’s transgressions. Non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries is a cornerstone of Chinese foreign policy under the long-heralded Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Huang’s fall highlights that China won’t soon abandon this principle.
Huang’s case is another example of a major lapse in the the Central Military Commission’s ability to exercise full political control over the entire chain-of-command of the PLA. There has been evidence for some time that miscommunication between the central leadership in Beijing and individual PLA officers and field commanders does exist. As we witnessed last fall, Xi Jinping felt the need to emphasize the importance of the PLA’s “absolute loyalty and firm faith in the Communist Party of China” — he made this declaration shortly after returning from his trip to India, when PLA troops crossed into India-administered Kashmir as the Chinese president arrived in the country. Huang, a PLA strategist, did not quite have the clout necessary to divert hard power assets in his bid to assist the Kokang rebels. Instead, he is being charged with leaking state secrets. Nevertheless, Myanmar military officials have alleged that former PLA soldiers did provide training and tactical advice to the rebels as well.
Read the full story at The Diplomat