Senior PLA Navy officer leaps to his death from Beijing block, source says

The deputy commissar of the PLA Navy, Vice Admiral Ma Faxiang, is believed to have committed suicide less than three months after another senior naval officer fell to his death, people close to the armed forces branch said.

Ma leapt from a building at a naval complex in Beijing on Thursday, a source told the Sunday Morning Post yesterday.

Rear Admiral Jiang Zhonghua of the navy's South Sea Fleet armaments department, plunged to his death from a hotel building in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province on September 2, the source added.

"Both Ma and Jiang's deaths are true. Those in the naval circle all know about it," said a former naval official based in Beijing, who asked to remain anonymous. "But none of them can discuss anything about the reasons behind those deaths. You know what I mean?"

The ranks of vice admiral and rear admiral are the second- and third-highest in the PLA Navy and correspond with the same ranks in the US and British navies. Political commissars are in charge of ideological matters and education in the branches of the People's Liberation Army.

Ma was promoted to rear admiral in 2005, a year after he was assigned as political commissar of the navy's armament department. He was promoted to vice admiral on August 1, 2012, the eve of the anniversary of the PLA's founding. In July, he was elevated to deputy political commissar of the navy.