PLA (strategic) news, pics, and videos

[plawolf]

Because corruption, grift and incompetence is endemic in the military and military industrial complex apparatuses of all nations. China is not a special snowflake on this one. Far from it. China's shit don't smell better.

There are two pretty big distinctions though.

1. In China, you will not get actual details and specifics about said corruption. grift or incompetence. The flow of information is strictly controlled by the state, and even when you do have something leak out, the state actively tries to suppress, misdirect or discredit for national security purposes. You won't get in China the equivalent of a deep dive investigative journalist crew like

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, for example. It is what it is.

2. In China, corruption, grift or incompetence actually result in material consequences for those involved. Sooner, or later. And heads roll, instead of getting rewarded for their crimes against the people.

Point one is really irrelevant at best and part of the whole corruption in reality when in the west. The kind of western propaganda-poster brave independent investigative reporter doesn’t actually exist in real life other than literal 1 in a million unicorn flukes. The regular reporter just report what they are ordered/allowed to report, most are more than happy to bend the truth or outright lie to do it. Case in point, I have yet to see any such piece on the blindingly obvious corruption and incompetence within basically all of the Pentagon’s major procurement programmes.

Almost every project is delayed, vastly overpriced and usually not meeting core performance requirements, and not one single vaunted brave independent western investigative journalist can do one single piece on it?

Relying on reporters to protect you from systematic corruption and graft is like relying on wild foxes to guard your henhouse.

There is also a fundamental difference in how corruption and graft is handled in China compared to the west that goes a long way to explaining both how so many high rankers are usually swept up in such scandals, as well as how Chinese defence procurement can deliver the kind of undreamt of real world deliveries despite all the corruption cases.

In China, especially when it comes to government and defence related procurements, you won’t be allowed to weasel and fineprint your way out of trouble on some technicalities. You can have a bulletproof defence by western standards, but still get convicted if your intentions were dishonest and you benefited as a result of that dishonesty. Hell, you don’t actually even need to profit personally, if the state has suffered damages as a result of your actions, you are basically fucked if there is any hint of dishonesty or malicious compliance involved.

The bar is even higher for Chinese officials. It’s simply not good enough to say I did everything in my contract as a defence if shit went down under your watch. Often you can have honest officials get swept up for simply not going the extra mile to ask that obvious key question or follow up on something that just seemed a little fishy. Yes it can be harsh and unfair, but it does create an environment where everyone is constantly going the extra mile, just in case. And China as a nation benefits massively from that. That is also why a lot of the people who are caught up in such large cases don’t actually get career or life-as-they-know-it ending consequences if they are merely involved due to incompetence or laxity. It will massively derail your career, but it’s not something you cannot come back from.

 

[HighGround]

Coming forward with news like this one is considered a priori damaging to the state and the party. This means the news had to come out.

I understand the possible Kremlinology take, but at the end of the day it is far easier and more straightforward to simply call a spade a spade.

Even a faintly defined one.

It is what it is, but just to poke it a bit more. I'm still a relative newcomer to PLA watching. Does the PLA ever reveal the details of investigations or firings? I would think that at a certain point the details stop being as relevant. You can also redact details that are sensitive to the military itself, or to on-going/future investigations. There's also the interest of the party itself to protect itself from criticism by revealing details that would paint them in the best light.

Revealing very little is what leads to... the Kremlinology takes, where a particularly strong explanatory theory is that the details or large parts of the investigation are embarassing to certain individuals within the Party, and therefore buried from the public eye.

Understandably, it is often the case with China that any additional transparency is exploited/punished by Western punditry/government actors only for the purpose of critiquing the party/China even more, but surely for domestic audiences it's worth exposing more information.

 

[burritocannon]

surely for domestic audiences it's worth exposing more information.

honestly? no.
the test i would apply is: what would you do with the information if it was provided? i think the truth is, nothing tangible to the state.
and i say this as an american. we have all this access to what we feel is government transparency, yet the government is completely insulated from the effects of any of it. we are not part of the decisionmaking process. if you're not part of the decisionmaking process, what's the use in knowing the information at all?
all you are left with is government information as private capital for your personal gain. which really is what we're messing around with all the time in the us. its an industry. heck, that's me and you playing pretend geopolitics here. china doesn't want it to be an industry and you know what, maybe it's for the better.

 

[Sinnavuuty]

He Weidong has been confirmed to be removed from his PLA and CPC posts due to severe violation of rules and protocols, alongside 8 others.

View attachment 162741

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The entire Fujian clique has fallen, leaving only the PLAGF gang: Liu Zhenli, Zhang Shengmin, and Zhang Youxia.

Rumor has it that Liu Zhenli will succeed Zhang Youxia in 2027 and become the next First Vice Chairman of the CMC (perhaps the one who will lead the siege and conquest of Taiwan).

 

[LKK815]

He Weidong has been confirmed to be removed from his PLA and CPC posts due to severe violation of rules and protocols, alongside 8 others.

View attachment 162741

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How Will this affect operational capability of ETC for the next few years in the event of a Taiwan contingency?

What's the chances that these purges are to get rid of the ood dead weight and to let new younger talent take over?

 

[Sinnavuuty]

How Will this affect operational capability of ETC for the next few years in the event of a Taiwan contingency?

What's the chances that these purges are to get rid of the ood dead weight and to let new younger talent take over?

It harms the morale of officers and generals, as a sense of security is lacking, and it could even lead to a lack of important leadership during military exercises involving Taiwan.

Some even claim that the

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of this year were heavily focused on propaganda, lacking real-world combat effectiveness, proving that neither He Weidong nor Lin Xiangyang were in command.

By the way:

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[drowingfish]

The entire Fujian clique has fallen, leaving only the PLAGF gang: Liu Zhenli, Zhang Shengmin, and Zhang Youxia.

Rumor has it that Liu Zhenli will succeed Zhang Youxia in 2027 and become the next First Vice Chairman of the CMC (perhaps the one who will lead the siege and conquest of Taiwan).

quick google search shows Zhang Shengmin has been the discipline commissar since 2017. Xi must trust him quite a bit to keep him in his current job for so long, and he must've had a big role in the purge. overall although the general agreement was that Xi's men were purged, I do not think the purge could have happened without Xi's permission. perhaps Xi came to some sort of agreement with Zhang Youxia and the officers he represent. It has been done in the past, Mao purged Peng Zhen to get Lin Biao onboard.

 

[Wrought]

It harms the morale of officers and generals, as a sense of security is lacking, and it could even lead to a lack of important leadership during military exercises involving Taiwan.

Some even claim that the

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of this year were heavily focused on propaganda, lacking real-world combat effectiveness, proving that neither He Weidong nor Lin Xiangyang were in command.

By the way:

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quick google search shows Zhang Shengmin has been the discipline commissar since 2017. Xi must trust him quite a bit to keep him in his current job for so long, and he must've had a big role in the purge. overall although the general agreement was that Xi's men were purged, I do not think the purge could have happened without Xi's permission. perhaps Xi came to some sort of agreement with Zhang Youxia and the officers he represent. It has been done in the past, Mao purged Peng Zhen to get Lin Biao onboard.

I will never understand why some folks view purges as an inherently bad thing. Did you think the military was flawless and perfect beforehand? Purges can be botched, or bungled, or otherwise mishandled. But they can also be exactly what you need to forge a stronger outfit.

What “Xi doomers” miss is that he welcomes purges if they reinforce his power and make the Party stronger. His top priority is advancing the Party’s “

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” (ziwo geming 自我革命) into a clean, disciplined, and effective organization that is capable of ruling China indefinitely. This is his “second answer” to escape the “historical cycle” of dynastic rise and fall — after Mao Zedong’s “first answer” of “democracy” — a rare instance of Xi comparing himself directly with the chairman. As the son of revolutionary leader

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, his

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is a Soviet-style collapse of the Party and its nation-building project, which define both his life and career. Upon taking power, he faced rampant corruption, institutional decay, and a pervasive sense of moral crisis. Fighting graft has sidelined rivals — and, in Xi’s view, safeguarded his “China dream.”

Recent purges reflect Xi’s political strength, not weakness. By removing high-ranking cadres and generals, Xi shows he can impose his will on both the Party and the PLA. The contrast with Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin is stark: over two decades they disciplined only two Politburo members and

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. Much is made of the fact that many targets rose under Xi — evidence, some say, of pushback from other factions or retired elders. But after thirteen years as General Secretary, almost all senior appointments can be traced to his tenure, and none of the fallen belonged to his personal inner circle. Xi has shown he is willing to remove those he once promoted if it strengthens cadre integrity and bureaucratic capability.

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You wanna know what happens when you don't adequately purge the people who need to be purged? You end up with a bunch of clowns firing live artillery over highways for shits and giggles.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980015445143966155

I believe this is what Huntington called the "apolitical military professional." How's that going for them?

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

 

[AndrewS]

I will never understand why some folks view purges as an inherently bad thing. Did you think the military was flawless and perfect beforehand? Purges can be botched, or bungled, or otherwise mishandled. But they can also be exactly what you need to forge a stronger outfit.

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You wanna know what happens when you don't adequately purge the people who need to be purged? You end up with a bunch of clowns firing live artillery over highways for shits and giggles.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1980015445143966155

I believe this is what Huntington called the "apolitical military professional." How's that going for them?

There is a difference between the oath for officers compared to enlisted.

Officers only swear allegiance to the Constitution, not the President.

 

[bsdnf]

Point one is really irrelevant at best and part of the whole corruption in reality when in the west. The kind of western propaganda-poster brave independent investigative reporter doesn’t actually exist in real life other than literal 1 in a million unicorn flukes. The regular reporter just report what they are ordered/allowed to report, most are more than happy to bend the truth or outright lie to do it. Case in point, I have yet to see any such piece on the blindingly obvious corruption and incompetence within basically all of the Pentagon’s major procurement programmes.

Almost every project is delayed, vastly overpriced and usually not meeting core performance requirements, and not one single vaunted brave independent western investigative journalist can do one single piece on it?

Relying on reporters to protect you from systematic corruption and graft is like relying on wild foxes to guard your henhouse.

There is also a fundamental difference in how corruption and graft is handled in China compared to the west that goes a long way to explaining both how so many high rankers are usually swept up in such scandals, as well as how Chinese defence procurement can deliver the kind of undreamt of real world deliveries despite all the corruption cases.

In China, especially when it comes to government and defence related procurements, you won’t be allowed to weasel and fineprint your way out of trouble on some technicalities. You can have a bulletproof defence by western standards, but still get convicted if your intentions were dishonest and you benefited as a result of that dishonesty. Hell, you don’t actually even need to profit personally, if the state has suffered damages as a result of your actions, you are basically fucked if there is any hint of dishonesty or malicious compliance involved.

The bar is even higher for Chinese officials. It’s simply not good enough to say I did everything in my contract as a defence if shit went down under your watch. Often you can have honest officials get swept up for simply not going the extra mile to ask that obvious key question or follow up on something that just seemed a little fishy. Yes it can be harsh and unfair, but it does create an environment where everyone is constantly going the extra mile, just in case. And China as a nation benefits massively from that. That is also why a lot of the people who are caught up in such large cases don’t actually get career or life-as-they-know-it ending consequences if they are merely involved due to incompetence or laxity. It will massively derail your career, but it’s not something you cannot come back from.

I saw a YouTube video where a non-governmental organization exposed Lockheed Martin's massively opaque use of funds in the F-35 program, and it garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

And then what? Nothing changed. You can't even figure out who to hold accountable or how to hold them accountable. The Pentagon's response is just: Oh, next time we'll be more careful about how we sign contracts.