China removes senior General, naval chief and top scientist in major purge in military

Beijing: The purge of China's powerful defence and security establishment continued as top military officials, including a senior general, chief of navy and a nuclear scientist, were expelled from the national legislature on Friday.

General Miao Hua along with Vice Admiral Li Hanjun, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), and Liu Shipeng, deputy chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation, have been removed from the National People's Congress (NPC), the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Li is the latest of a string of PLA generals and a handful of defence industry executives to have been implicated in a sweeping crackdown in the military, the Post reported.

Both have been stripped of their membership of the legislature, the report said.

State-run Xinhua news agency reported that the standing committee of the NPC, which concluded its session here on Friday, also voted to remove top General Miao Hua from his position as a member of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the overall high command of the Chinese military, headed by President Xi Jinping.

Miao, the youngest general in the Chinese military hierarchy, has been under probe for serious violations of discipline since November last year. He was dismissed from the NPC in April this year.

Miao was also director of the Political Work Department of the CMC, a role critical in managing Communist Party ideology and personnel changes within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

His career advanced significantly after Xi assumed power, leading to roles in the Chinese Navy as a political commissar and eventually becoming the PLA’s youngest admiral.

The defence ministry said Miao was being investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline, a phrase used as a euphemism for corruption.

Since he took over power towards the end of 2012, 72-year-old Xi has carried out massive purges in the country’s over two-million-strong military, removing or punishing dozens of senior generals for corruption and indiscipline.  Those who were punished included two defence ministers as Xi consolidated his hold on the armed forces and the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

Xi has repeatedly emphasised the importance of party loyalty among PLA officials to strengthen ideological control and support China’s goal of becoming a military superpower.

Miao is the second CMC member to be removed from his position since the current leadership took office in 2022.