China expels two top generals from party, military over disloyalty, corruption

China has expelled two senior military officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, from the Communist Party and the military over what state media described as “serious violations of discipline and law”.

Zhang was a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s supreme military command body, and had long been regarded as one of President Xi Jinping’s closest military allies. Liu was a CMC member and chief of staff of its Joint Staff Department, Reuters reports.

The military has been a major target of a broader anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi in 2012.

Investigations into Zhang and Liu were announced in January, and both were removed from the state CMC in late August.

Chinese authorities accused the two officers of disloyalty, corruption, dereliction of duty and other serious disciplinary violations.

According to documents cited by the state-run Xinhua news agency, Zhang and Liu “seriously violated political discipline and political rules, formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party”.

The documents also accused them of crossing “red lines and basic limits”, saying their political and economic wrongdoing was intertwined with corrupt self-enrichment, dereliction of duty and abuse of office.

“The sums involved were exceptionally large; the nature (of their conduct) was extremely serious and the impact extremely egregious,” Xinhua said.

Zhang had also been a member of the ruling Communist Party’s elite Politburo and was one of only a few senior Chinese military officers with combat experience.

The announcement came days before Xi is due to travel to the United States for talks with President Donald Trump and weeks before a key Communist Party meeting on internal governance and discipline.

By Aghakazim Guliyev