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Holly Chik

The profile of one of China’s top nuclear weapons scientists has been scrubbed from the website of the nation’s engineering brains trust.
Zhao Xiangeng, 72, was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), the nation’s highest academic body for engineering science and technology, but his profile page has disappeared from the CAE’s site.
It is not known when the page was removed, but Chinese media reports noted the change on Saturday.
Similar online references to other CAE academicians, radar specialist Wu Manqing, 60, and missile designer Wei Yiyin, 63, have been removed, according to the reports.
No explanations have been given for the changes.
However, two months ago, the defence ministry announced that top general Zhang Youxia and fellow Central Military Commission member Liu Zhenli were under investigation, swept up in the anti-corruption campaign in the armed forces.


While Zhao’s CAE profile has disappeared, he was still listed as one of 13 academicians on the website of the Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics in Beijing on Sunday.
The institute referred to him as “one of the main academic and technical leaders in the country’s nuclear weapons research”.
The institute is the only body of its kind in the country focused on the theoretical design and research of strategic weapons. It develops hi-tech weapons, advances conventional weapons and studies fusion energy and other fields.
It is a research unit under the China Academy of Engineering Physics, where Zhao gained his doctorate in 1991, and was president from 2008 to 2015.
“[Zhao] took part in organising, leading and presiding over the completion of numerous large-scale experiments and major national defence missions in the country,” the institute said.
“[He] was responsible for formulating theoretical plans, validating reliability, tackling key technological challenges and making decisions, significantly contributing to the development of our nuclear science and technology under a nuclear weapon test ban.”
China’s last recorded nuclear test, an underground detonation in the western region of Xinjiang, was in 1996. Two months after that test, China signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, an agreement that has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly but has yet to be ratified by all states.
Zhao was elected an academician of the CAE in 2011, where he also served as a vice-president for two years.
Wu, the radar specialist, is also no longer profiled on the CAE’s site.
Wu was a major contributor to the strategy to develop China’s own early warning aircraft, resulting in the production of the KJ-500, which is used by the air force.
A profile on the China Satellite Navigation Conference website said this approach enabled China to shed its dependence on “others in terms of carrier platforms and key technologies”.
Wu led major national projects on social security risk perception and big data applications, integrated electronic information systems for the military and the development of an integrated communications network connecting satellites with ground stations, the conference website added.
He was also the general manager of China Electronics Technology Group. In 2025, Wu was removed from the post of vice-president of the CAE, state news agency Xinhua reported. He was elected an academician in 2009.
Wei, an expert in missile design and guidance control technology, was elected a CAE academician in 2019.
In 2023, the Beijing News reported that Wei had been replaced as vice general manager of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited, a state-owned enterprise that makes defence products such as missile systems, solid rockets and space equipment.


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Former CAE vice-president Zhao Xiangeng is among a number of academicians no longer profiled on the body’s website


Former CAE vice-president Zhao Xiangeng is among a number of academicians no longer profiled on the body’s website.


Top nuclear weapons, radar and missile experts vanish from Chinese Academy of Engineering site

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Former CAE vice-president Zhao Xiangeng is among a number of academicians no longer profiled on the body’s website

Former CAE vice-president Zhao Xiangeng is among a number of academicians no longer profiled on the body’s website