BEIJING, Sept 21 (Reuters) – China has expelled two top military officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, from the Communist Party and the military over “serious violations of discipline and law”, the state-run Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
Zhang Youxia was second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission – the supreme command body – and has long been seen as Xi’s closest military ally. Liu was a CMC member and the chief of staff of its Joint Staff Department.
The military has been one of the main targets of a broader corruption crackdown ordered by Xi in 2012.
Probes into Zhang and Liu were announced in January, with the pair removed from the state Central Military Commission in late August.
The Chinese leadership accused Zhang and Liu of disloyalty, corruption, dereliction of duty and other serious disciplinary violations.
The pair “seriously violated political discipline and political rules, formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party,” Xinhua cited official documents as saying.
Zhang and Liu “crossed red lines and basic limits,” it said, adding that their “political and economic wrongdoing were intertwined, and corrupt self-enrichment coexisted with 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,” it said.
Zhang had also been a member of the elite Politburo of the ruling Communist Party and is one of just a few leading officers with combat experience.
The announcement came days before Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to travel to the US for talks with President Donald Trump, and weeks before a key October party conclave on internal party governance and discipline.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom, Editing by Louise Heavens and Alex Richardson)
