Hotels and resorts owned by Chinese military enjoyed ‘protection’
Businesses tied to top PLA officials were sometimes shielded from crackdowns, experts say
The ban on the People’s Liberation Army running its own paid-for services is the latest significant move in President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-graft campaign.
It was launched after he become chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) – the nation’s supreme military policymaking body – as part of efforts to tackle the root cause of corruption within the armed forces that existed under two of his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, analysts said.
So far the anti-corruption campaign has brought down at least 60 senior military officials, including two former CMC vice-chairmen, the former generals Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, plus another former general Gu Junshan, once deputy head of the army’s logistics department, which controlled the army’s property management.
Bringing an end to PLA Inc.
A Beijing-based retired senior colonel said both Jiang and Hu had failed to tackle corruption involving the army’s paid-for services because they had been the first and second civilians to chair the CMC, which, at that time, was dominated by military heavyweights.
“As the first civilian to head the CMC, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen crackdown [in 1989], Jiang had to make concessions to win support from influential military leaders,” said the veteran, who requested anonymity. “Hu was well-known for being isolated by his two PLA deputies, Guo and Xu, who were Jiang’s proxies.”
Because the PLA, the world’s biggest armed force with more than 2 million personnel, had helped the Communist Party grasp political power, its top military officials found themselves entitled to enjoy privileges because of its unshakable authority, Shanghai-based political scientist Chen Daoyin said.
This led many private enterprises to try to cultivate connections with senior military officials so they could share in its privileges. In April 2014, Dongguan’s “hotel king” Liang Yaohui was arrested by police and charged with organising prostitution.
