BEIJING • Two generals who sit on China’s top military body have been excluded from a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle next month, setting the stage for President Xi Jinping to carry out a further shake-up of the world’s largest army..
BEIJING • Two generals who sit on China’s top military body have been excluded from a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle next month, setting the stage for President Xi Jinping to carry out a further shake-up of the world’s largest army.
General Fang Fenghui and General Zhang Yang were not among the 303 delegates to the upcoming Communist Party congress listed yesterday by the army’s main newspaper.
Their absence, which follows Hong Kong media reports that they face disciplinary probes, signals that the generals have been taken out of consideration. That means Mr Xi could fill as many as seven seats on the 11-member Central Military Commission (CMC) , the party body that runs the military.
Gen Fang, 66, has been one of China’s most visible officers – accompanying Mr Xi to his first meeting with US President Donald Trump in Florida, in April – and was positioned by age and rank to rise further. Last month, he was replaced as chief of the army’s Joint Staff Department by General Li Zuocheng.
The openings could help Mr Xi cement control over the more than two million-member People’s Liberation Army, as he presses ahead with the most sweeping military overhaul in six decades.
