Indian Defence Review

The First Female General Caught

The same Caixin.com announced that the first female ‘tiger’ was under investigation, suspected of bribery. Before her arrest, Maj. Gen. Gao Xiaoyan used to be a Political Commissar and CCDI’s representative at the PLA Information Engineering University. She is suspected of taking big amounts while serving as Political Commissar at the PLA’s 309th Hospital from 2005 to 2012. Some rumours said that she was intimately close to Gu Junshan. A native of Shanxi, the province which is topping arrests for corruption, Gao joined the army when she was 17. She had been responsible for major construction projects at the hospital. It included building 15 dormitories and a garage, which could accommodate 1,000 vehicles. If many of the senior posts have been ‘purchased’, one understands that the level of preparedness of the Chinese Armed Forces was not the first priority of many Generals.

Spate of Military Suicides

The PLA has recently witnessed a wave of suicides linked to corruption. In November, The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, “As Supreme Leader Xi Jinping’s anti-graft crusade penetrates the inner circles of the People’s Liberation Army, signs of internal tension and disorder among senior military leaders are becoming evident, with reliable sources reporting that a growing number of leaders have committed suicide.” The Hong Kong newspaper cites the cases of Vice Admiral Ma Faxiang who, on November 2013, jumped from the 15th floor of the PLA Navy’s headquarters in Beijing. Ma was the Deputy Commissar responsible for promotions and ideological indoctrination of officers.

A few days earlier, Maj. Gen. Song Yuwen, Deputy Commissar of Jilin military district (of Shenyang Military Region), had hanged himself. He had earlier been suspended on corruption charges. Note that Xu Caihou served most of his early career in Jilin military district. On September 02, Rear Admiral Jiang Zhonghua also jumped from a high-rise building on a naval base in Zhejiang province. Jiang was then director of naval armaments for the South Sea Fleet. The SCMP explains, “The PLA is the world’s largest armed force and has been a pillar of the communist government. Its members enjoy enormous privileges, wealth and political clout, which has bred corruption and immunity from punishment.” ‘Suicide’ is often convenient as dead officers do not speak.

Change of Guard in the PLA

In the process of wiping out corruption, Chairman Xi seems to have decided to go in for a change of guard. In December 2014, The South China Morning Post asserted that the ‘big changes’ in China always occurred on Friday or Saturday, “For the past two years it has been accepted – almost as a rule of thumb – among China’s media and interested mainlanders that Fridays and weekends are the likely time for senior officials to fall from grace over allegations of corruption.” The ‘big change’ for the PLA Tigers did not happen on a weekend, but on the Christmas day.

Want China Times, the news website based in Taiwan announced the replacement of 40 senior commanders in the armed forces. The Taiwanese paper reported, “Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has replaced 40 senior military commanders including the head of the People’s Armed Police according to a new nomination list posted by a Chinese internet user.” The article asserted, “Xi has continued his purge of PLA generals whose loyalty to him may be questionable. The nomination list released on December 20 suggests that various key positions within the Chinese military will be taken over by Lieutenants Generals who are close associates of Xi.” Apart from Qin Weijiang, Hu Yishu and Li Shangfu nominated as the Deputy Chiefs of the General Staff, General Logistics and General Equipment departments respectively, Yin Fanglong and Miao Hua were named as the Political Commissars of the Second Artillery Corps and Navy, while Wang Weiming and Wang Dengping are to be the Deputy Commanders and Deputy Political Commissars of the PLA Navy. Zhang Junxiang and Zhou Yaning will now serve as the Second Artillery Corps’ new Deputy Commanders. Are all these generals honest? It is difficult to say.

The Tibet Military District

Also interesting is the fate of Lt. Gen. Wang Jianping, the Commander of the People’s Armed Police (PAPF) who has apparently lost his job to Wang Ning, a Deputy Chief of General Staff of the PLA. Wang Jiangping was an old Tibet-hand. A native of Hebei province, this officer was promoted to Major General in 1997 and ten years later, he became Lieutenant General. He served as Commander of the Tibet Autonomous Region’s (TAR) PAPF from 1996 to 2000. He knows Tibet well and particularly the frontiers with India. Wang used to be a member of the Central Working Coordination Small Group on Tibet.

When Wang visited Tibet in June 2014, the TAR’s entire Standing Committee was in attendance to receive him. While in Lhasa, he inspected the TAR’s People’s Armed Police training base, a Traffic police detachment, Tibet’s Forest Armed Police Corps, the 117 Police Division, a detachment of Ngari Police. According to The Tibet Daily, he wanted to get a detailed understanding of the situation. Wang Jianping then acknowledged the success achieved by the Armed Police’s Tibet Corps and the Armed Police Forces and gave a piece of advice to officers posted on the frontiers; a good chess player takes the initiative.

Well, he was probably too close to Zhou Yongkang, the former member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, who is now being ‘investigated’. It was not a good move on the chessboard for Wang. For India the question is – will a ‘softer’ hand help to stabilise the restive Himalayan region which is the base for any action on the Indian frontiers? It is not certain. Also interesting for us in India, is the fate of Lt. Gen. Yang Jinshan, who for years commanded the Tibet Military District, opposite the Indian troops posted in Arunachal. He ‘did’ so well that he reached the ‘Marxist’ heaven, the CPC’s Central Committee (CC).

In 2005, Yang (a Han, like all senior PLA officers) was promoted to the rank of Major General and in July 2011, he became a Lieutenant General. He had earlier taken over the Command of the Tibet Military District in 2009. In 2012, he was elected as a member of the powerful Central Committee. In June 2013, General Yang was transferred on promotion to Chengdu as a Deputy Commander of the Chengdu Military Region from where he continued to oversee the operations in Tibet.

In October 2014, he was suddenly expelled from the Central Committee ‘for serious disciplinary violations’; it was a first in the annals of the Party – a serving General expelled from the CC. Apparently, General Yang’s fall is also linked to Xu Caihou’s wrongdoings. In the meantime, the CMC warned that ideological struggles within the PLA were ‘acute and complicated’. The Global Times asserted, “Military reform has entered ‘uncharted waters’ with concerns growing that reform could be impeded by ‘structural problems’.” Quite worrying! It would not be surprising if, in 2015, some disgruntled Generals try to enter Indian territory in Ladakh or Arunachal, just to divert the attention of the leadership.

Indo-Chinese relations

Just before the ‘reshuffle’ in the PLA, Senior Colonel Yang Yujun, the spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense during his regular monthly press conference in Beijing was asked, “Can you give some details on how you see the next year coming?” After mentioning the friendly exchange between China and India and ‘several important cooperation programs between the two militaries’, he spoke of the border defense troops of the two sides who conducted meetings and regular exchanges; he said, “Both sides also properly handled issues of encounter at the Line of Actual Control and maintained peace and stability on the China-India border.”

One still remembers the Chumar incident at the time of Chairman Xi’s visit. The spokesman added, “We should focus our attention on the implementation of the Border Defense Cooperation Agreement signed by the two governments and ensure peace and stability along the China-India border.” To focus on the implementation of the Border Defense Cooperation Agreement does not mean that there will be no Chinese intrusions on Indian soil in 2015, it just signifies, “we can tackle these issues through the Border Agreement.” For the Chinese, the fact that there is a mechanism does not mean ‘no intrusion’, quite the contrary.

In the meantime, the ‘training of the different units based on the plateau continues on a large scale. This is the second part of Xi’s dual move. The conclusion is that India too should be prepared for any contingencies.