AS many as 30 senior officers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will be fired or retired during a reshuffle tentatively scheduled for late November, according to reports in Hong Kong and Beijing.
The purge, largely aimed at further weakening the power base of the so-called Yang Clan in the PLA, also shows that patriarch Deng Xiaoping still has overall control over the army.
Today's issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review reported that many of the supporters of disgraced army strongman General Yang Baibing, a half-brother of former president Yang Shangkun, would step down after the Third Plenum of the Central Committee, scheduled for next month.
The Hong Kong-based magazine said officers who would be retiring included the commander of the Lanzhou military region, General Liu Jingsong, the political commissar of the Chengdu military region, Lieutenant-General Zhang Gong, and a vice-commander of the Jinan military region, Lieutenant-General Don g Xuelin.
Military sources said other top brass who were likely to step down included the commander of the Beijing military region, General Wang Chengbin, and the political commissars of the Jinan and Guangzhou military regions, General Song Qingwei and General Shi Yuxiao.
Altogether about 30 officers at the level of vice-commander or above would be removed.
The sources said the final decisions would be made by the Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman, President Jiang Zemin, in conjunction with his two deputies, Generals Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen.