Military analysts link the reshuffle to a submarine accident in which 70 died
The mainland's top naval leaders have been replaced in a military leadership shake-up that Chinese military analysts speculate could be the result of the recent submarine accident that claimed 70 lives.
Xinhua reported yesterday that naval commander Admiral Shi Yunsheng and naval political commissar Admiral Yang Huaiqing had been removed from their posts.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Central Military Commission have replaced the two men with Vice-Admiral Zhang Dingfa as the new commander and Vice-Admiral Hu Yanlin as the new commissar.
The report provided no further details about the shake-up.
Admirals Shi and Yang were appointed by former president and current Central Military Commission chairman Jiang Zemin in 1996 and 1995 respectively.
Vice-Admiral Zhang becomes the navy's top commander after serving less than a year as the director of the Academy of Military Science - an appointment that came after the 16th Communist Party Congress last November. He was also selected as an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party at the November session.
