China | Military corruption

Rank and vile

Xi Jinping flexes his muscle against army corruption

|BEIJING

SO EXTENSIVE was the stash of jade, gold and cash found in the basement of General Xu Caihou’s mansion in Beijing that at least ten lorries were needed to haul it away, according to the Chinese press last October. Given General Xu’s recent retirement as the highest ranking uniformed officer in the armed forces, this was astonishing news. General Xu, the media said, had accepted “extremely large” bribes, for which he now faces trial. It will be the first of such an exalted military figure since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—as the Chinese army, navy and air force are collectively known—has not fought a war for 35 years. But the world’s largest fighting force is now engaged in a fierce battle at home against corrosion within its ranks.

Xi Jinping, China’s president (pictured, pointing), has taken his sweeping anti-corruption campaign into the heart of the PLA, seemingly unafraid to show that a hallowed institution is also deeply flawed. In January the PLA took the unprecedented step of revealing that 15 generals and another senior officer were under investigation or awaiting trial. It said it would launch a stringent review of recruitment, promotions, procurements and all of its financial dealings in order to root out corruption.

One reason Mr Xi is keen to clean up the army is to ensure that it remains a bulwark of party rule. The PLA is the party’s armed wing—its soldiers swear allegiance to it rather than the people or the country. All officers are party members and each company is commanded jointly by an officer in charge of military affairs and another whose job it is to ensure troops toe the party line. Mr Xi has repeatedly stressed the party’s “absolute leadership” over the PLA. His definition of a “strong army” puts “obedience to the party’s commands” before “capability of winning wars”.

Fighting military graft is intended to enhance both of these qualities. Mr Xi wants to develop a lean, rapidly deployable fighting force, which is better able to project power abroad and defend the nation’s borders which China regards as encompassing a vast maritime area as well as Taiwan and Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. As Luo Yuan, a general, wrote in December: “Without eradicating corruption, we would lose any war before fighting it.” Many Western experts believe the PLA is becoming increasingly able to assert China’s territorial claims, despite the corruption. But warnings such as those by General Luo are taken seriously by Mr Xi.

Military corruption, though seldom spoken of so publicly before, has long been a problem. In the 1990s the PLA, at first with the party’s blessing, dived into commerce. “The result was PLA Inc,” says Tai Ming Cheung of the University of California, San Diego. The army set up 20,000-30,000 business across China, says Mr Cheung; including hotels, financial services and nightclubs. Many became the seeds of rampant corruption.

In 1998 President Jiang Zemin called a halt to most PLA commerce, but the armed forces never rid themselves of graft. The PLA remains subject to little supervision (its power to flout the law is evident on the streets, where cars with military plates pay little heed to rules). Military salaries have been rising in recent years: the pay of non-commissioned officers increased by 40% in 2014 and that of officers by 20-30%. But wages are still not high enough to reduce incentives for corruption. Senior officers receive a pittance compared with the bosses of state-owned enterprises.

Corruption is worst in departments dealing with logistics, weapons procurement and political matters (the latter is in charge of maintaining party loyalty and of appointments). Housing is among the biggest rackets. Many supposedly affordable homes built for soldiers since 1999 were instead constructed as luxury villas and sold off or enjoyed by military personnel. Some generals reportedly erected ceilings twice the standard height in order to add a floor later. Paying bribes for promotions is widespread: nine of the 16 senior officers recently disgraced, including Mr Xu, were from the PLA’s political wing.

Some of these problems are now being tackled. The PLA says it will scrutinise appointments more closely and make secret inspections to stamp out the acceptance of bribes by recruitment officers. Officers are being restricted to a single army-subsidised home. Luxury cars may not carry military license plates. To cut costs and break up (often corrupt) monopolies, private companies will be allowed to bid for most defence contracts. Military auditors recently joined a national meeting of their civilian counterparts for the first time—a sign, perhaps, that the PLA is beginning to air its problems more openly.

Mr Xi’s military clout gives him a greater chance of success than his predecessors in curbing graft in the PLA. One of his first jobs after graduating was as a personal secretary to the minister of defence. His father was a guerrilla fighter who was close to Mao Zedong (until Mao eventually turned on him). Such connections can be used to powerful effect in Chinese politics.

But even with his enormous authority Mr Xi will find it hard to change such a secretive and hidebound institution. The fallen generals can expect tough punishment, but the PLA tends to deal with its own wrongdoers with a light touch. The ill-defined quality of “political reliability” will remain a crucial factor in gaining promotion—one wide open to abuse.

It will be tougher still to make the PLA better at fighting. Most troops have no direct combat experience, commanders are ill-trained in the complexities of modern warfare, and training for rank-and-file troops is not realistic enough. Annual double-digit increases in defence spending—the norm for the last two decades—have helped equip the PLA with some advanced weaponry, but not necessarily the ability to use it effectively. Even if corruption is rooted out, the PLA will struggle to modernise.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "Rank and vile"

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