By Shannon Tiezzi
SCMP reports that a general accused of corruption was actually ousted for giving assistance to Myanmar’s Kokang rebels.
Earlier, I covered two seemingly unrelated stories for The Diplomat: lingering accusations that ethnic Chinese rebels in Myanmar were receiving aid from China and the recent announcement of 14 PLA generals under investigation for corruption. Now a recent report from South China Morning Post suggests there’s overlap in those stories: Major General Huang Xing, one of the 14 officers listed as being investigated for corruption, reportedly stands accused not only of fraud, but of leaking state secrets and assisting Kokang rebels in Myanmar back in 2009.
Huang, formerly a top researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, was an odd figure to appear on the PLA’s list of corrupt officers. As I mentioned in my earlier story, most of the officers on the list were working in either logistics departments or political bureaus – areas rife with opportunities for embezzlement and accepting bribes. As Arthur Ding Shu-fan, a PLA researcher at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan, told SCMP, seeing Huang’s name on the list was a surprise: “As a military scholar, I don’t think he would be implicated in corruption because he doesn’t have many opportunities to take bribes.”
Sources told SCMP that, in fact, Huang was charged not because of rampant corruption but because he made the “political mistake” of supporting Kokang rebels in their fight against Myanmar government troops. Both military officials, as well as a self-described friend of Huang’s, told SCMP they suspected the fraud charges were merely a convenient pretext for arresting Huang. His support for the Myanmar rebels “embarrassed” top leaders, one retired senior colonel told SCMP, so “they picked up another convenient charge to punish him with.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat