Xi Jinping Presses Military Overhaul, and Two Generals Disappear
Source: New York Times
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and STEVEN LEE MYERS OCT. 11, 2017
BEIJING He was one of Chinas most prominent commanders, with hopes of rising higher. So when Gen. Fang Fenghui disappeared from public view, it sent a clear warning to the top leaders of the Peoples Liberation Army: President Xi Jinping was not done shaking up their once-unassailable ranks.
General Fang, the chief of the armys Joint Staff Department, was not the only military leader to fall ahead of next weeks Communist Party congress. Gen. Zhang Yang, the director of the militarys political department, also vanished from sight. Their names have not appeared in the Chinese news media for more than a month, when their successors were announced with no fanfare.
Removing the two generals was the latest step by Mr. Xi to strengthen his grip on the military, a pillar of Communist Party power. On the eve of the party congress, which will kick off his second five-year term as the nations leader, he seems to have concluded that he must exert greater control to remake the countrys armed forces into a power worthy of Chinas global standing.
Mr. Xis reorganization of the military has already gone further than seemed possible under his recent predecessors, but as the overhaul and its attendant personnel cuts have begun to take shape, Mr. Xi has confronted poor coordination among branches of the armed forces and foot-dragging from senior officers whose positions have been threatened.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/world/asia/xi-jinping-military-china-purge.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
I'm sure the generals are in a beautiful park upstate, frolicking with all the dogs there.