THE People's Liberation Army (PLA) has kept its anti-graft operations under wraps in spite of doubts expressed by Chinese intellectuals that its huge business empire could be a hotbed for corruption. The Disciplinary Commission of the army held a work meeting late last month, but an official account of the session revealed little about the extent of army corruption or what it was doing about it. Meanwhile, the reshuffle of army leadership which began in December has reached the level of the group armies, and military analysts said some personnel changes had to do with the fight against corruption. Xinhua (the New China News Agency) yesterday quoted Central Military Commission (CMC) vice-chairman Liu Huaqing as saying: ''High standards must be maintained in the PLA work to fight corruption and propagate honesty.'' General Liu added that since its role was to provide ''a guarantee of security'' for the modernisation programme, the army must ''do an even better job'' than other sectors of society in the construction of a good and clean party style. ''Senior army officers must have the nation's overall situation in mind and seriously obey political discipline,'' General Liu said. The meeting on disciplinary matters in the army was held at the same time as an anti-corruption conference organised by the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection. However, while the commission last week released details of its anti-graft crusade and judicial organs disclosed the number of corrupt officials arrested, army authorities have kept their operations under wraps. Chinese sources said the CMC was worried that public disclosure of the seriousness of PLA-related corruption might undermine the image of the army, which patriarch Deng Xiaoping has called a ''steel Great Wall'' that protects socialism. Meanwhile, military sources said yesterday the reshuffles that began in mid-December had filtered to the level of the 24 group armies. They said at least 20 per cent of the commanders and political commissars of the armies had been replaced. As a result of this and earlier changes, about 30 per cent of the members of the policy-setting party committees of the seven military regions had also been reshuffled. The source said the main factors behind the ongoing reshuffle was ''rejuvenation, professionalisation and the weeding out of corruption''.
