China’s defence minister ‘under investigation’ like his predecessors: Powerful military, vulnerable leaders

China is one of the world’s most powerful nations, but its defence ministers are proving strangely vulnerable. Dong Jun is the third Chinese defence minister to come under investigation, reports the Financial Times, after his two immediate predecessors were found guilty of corruption. Ironically, the billions :Beijing is splurging on becoming a superpower to rival America proved the undoing of its two former defence ministers.

Now, the current incumbent, Dong Jun, has come under investigation, reports the Financial Times, citing current and former US officials.

Dong Jun and his predecessors

Dong Jun assumed office in December 2023 after the dismissal of his predecessor, General Li Shangfu. Li was ousted only seven months after he succeeded Wei Fenghe, who faced several allegations after stepping down as defence minister in March last year. Both Li and Wei were expelled from the Communist Party in June this year for “serious violations of discipline”, a euphemism for corruption, recalls Reuters.

The Communist Party said at the time that Li and Weng were found to have received huge sums of money in bribes and sought benefits for others.

Reuters reported last year that Li was under investigation for suspected corruption in military procurement.

The details of the allegations against Dong remain unclear.

Drive against corruption in PLA

Clearly, however, Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a sweeping drive against corruption in the PLA.

More than a dozen senior military figures have already been unseated since the investigation began last summer into hardware purchases going back to 2017, reports Bloomberg. The probe resulted in the downfall of the last two defence ministers and several officials with ties to the secretive Rocket Force that oversees China’s nuclear arsenal.

Poisoned chalice?

With Dong reportedly being investigated for corruption like his predecessors, the question arises whether the position of the defence minister in China has become a poisoned chalice.

The Chinese defence minister is not actually in charge of the armed forces – they are under the command of the Central Military Commission chaired by President Xi Jinping – but the minister conducts Chinese military diplomacy with other nations.

Dong, for example, attended a defence ministers’ recently in Laos, where he declined to meet US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. The refusal followed US approval of advanced weaponry for Taiwan, escalating tensions. This diplomatic snub occurred amid a backdrop of tentative efforts to rebuild military communication channels between the US and China.

While the Chinese defence minister is not the armed forces’ supreme authority, Dong and his two predecessors held top ranks in the military. Dong was the PLA navy chief. He is the first navy admiral to be defence minister. Wei served as a commander of the PLA Rocket Force. Li, an aerospace engineer, was a senior official associated with general armaments and equipment development before his elevation to the rank of a general.

Cost of modernisation

All three served in the top echelons of the world’s largest armed forces, which are rapidly modernising.

“In some areas of military strength, China has surpassed America,” the Economist reported on November 4. China today possesses the world’s largest navy, the newest naval vessels, warplanes that are “near the calibre of those from NATO countries”, and, according to some, the world’s leading arsenal of hypersonic missiles, added the Economist.

China has become a major power at an enormous cost.

China’s military budget

The Associated Press reported on March 5 this year that China announced a 7.2 per cent increase in its defence budget, which is the world’s second-highest behind the United States at $222 billion.

No, it’s spending far more, claims The Hill.

According to The Hill, China’s military budget might have been as high as $711 billion in 2022. It noted that American spy agencies estimated Chinese military spending at about $700 billion.

The US military budget for the fiscal year 2024 as of March 2023,on the other hand, was $842 billion, according to Wikipedia.

“China’s self-reported military budget, which comes directly from the Chinese Communist Party… excludes essential expenditures such as paramilitary organisations, funding for defence research and development, and its illegal South China Sea island-building campaign,” said The Hill on April 30 this year. “Many experts believe China’s public defence budget does not include other military-relevant expenses such as space activities, construction, and research.”

Corruption amid military build-up

In other words, Beijing is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a massive military build-up, and there is corruption in the armed forces, which President Xi is trying to stamp out. In the process, he is also strengthening his grip on the military.

Dong’s tenure as defence minister has been marked by uncertainty. Unusually, he was not appointed to the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest military body, nor to the State Council earlier this year—both traditional roles for defence ministers.

President Xi’s anti-corruption campaign aims to strengthen the military’s “war-preparedness”.

The PLA is a behemoth by any standards, with more than two million active personnel and more than 500,000 reserve personnel as of 2022.

It’s a formidable military machine, but experts warn that it could be undermined by corruption. US officials have expressed doubts about the PLA’s ability to meet Xi’s target to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Peace lovers will, of course, never want the PLA to be put to that test.