Exclusive | PLA brass ‘defied Beijing’ over plan to buy China’s first aircraft carrier Liaoning
Xu Zengping reveals how two generals went against the central government's wishes and helped him buy the pride of China's fleet
For nearly two decades it was one of China's best-kept secrets but now Hong Kong-based businessman Xu Zengping is breaking his silence and unmasking the PLA masterminds behind the purchase of what became the country's first aircraft carrier.
In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, 63-year-old Xu, a former People's Liberation Army basketball player, revealed that the generals behind the deal were two top-ranking members of the Communist Party's "princeling" generation.
He said late deputy naval commander He Pengfei and Ji Shengde, the then-PLA intelligence chief who was working independently of the intelligence bureau at the time, were the backroom drivers of the covert deal to buy a 70 per cent-completed Kuznetsov-class Varyag carrier from Ukraine's Black Sea shipyard so that it could become the pride of the PLA fleet.
He, who held the rank of vice-admiral, is the only son of the legendary Long March marshal, He Long , a revolutionary hero to veterans like Xu and his peers on the mainland.
He Pengfei died of a heart attack in 2001 at 56. Ji was given a suspended death sentence by a military court in 2000 for bribery and illegal fundraising.