Fragility of the Chinese system – Analysis – Eurasia Review

Despite astonishing economic success, China's system is riddled with corruption, although Chinese President Xi Jinping has frequently used the whips, but deterrence has not helped fix the system. The latest in this story is that the country's Defense Minister, Dong Jun, is reportedly under investigation for corruption. Dong is the third consecutive outgoing president or former defense chief to be investigated for alleged corruption.

The alleged corruption scandal is a development that could undermine efforts to maintain military communications between the United States and China just months before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The report in the Financial Times Allegations of corruption in a wide-ranging scandal that has touched the highest echelons of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) have embarrassed Xi Jinping's administration.

Dong has served as defense minister since December 2023, following the dismissal of his predecessor, Li Shangfu, for alleged corruption after just seven months in the role. Dong and Li were appointed by Xi Jinping. Li himself had replaced Wei Fenghe, who had also been questioned for corruption after retiring. Subsequent reports indicated that a senior military official, other than the defense minister, had been suspended and was being investigated for serious discipline violations. It was further clarified that the suspended officer, Admiral Miao Hua, was part of the ruling Central Military Commission, China's highest military command body, and was stationed in the province coastal Fujian when President Xi Jinping worked there as a local official.

China's military has undergone a sweeping anti-corruption purge since 2023, with at least nine PLA generals excluded from the national legislature. In Dong's case, a Defense spokesperson clarified that the news that Dong had been excluded from an investigation was a pure fabrication spread by rumor mongers with perverse motivations. Even the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, was quoted as saying that this was just a hunt for shadows. However, the mystery continues.

Regardless, the position of defense minister is largely symbolic in the Chinese system. Dong does not supervise combat forces. The post is widely seen as an important face representing Beijing's diplomatic and military policies to the outside world. Regardless of the veracity of Dong's case, he refused to meet with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of a recent meeting of Asian defense chiefs in Laos. The Defense Ministry in Beijing has raised concerns about U.S. arms sales to democratic Taiwan, which Taiwan considers a renegade province. Xi Jinping has set a deadline of 2027 to invade Taiwan to integrate the democratic island into the mainland. Given the fissures within the country's defense establishment, this aspiration must remain a will-o'-the-wisp for now.

Previously, Austin met Dong in May 2023 at the Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore. Naturally, Austin called the decision to no longer meet with Dong in Laos unfortunate. Beijing, however, remains faithful to its position on the issue of arms sales, for which Washington accuses Beijing of being solely responsible.

Interestingly, news of Dong's corruption investigation came less than two weeks after Xi met with US President Joe Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Peru, where the two leaders welcomed the resumption of military communications. and reaffirmed the need to keep the channels open.

Beijing is rightly concerned that President-elect Trump has already appointed a number of China hawks to key Cabinet positions. In order to avoid a deterioration in bilateral relations with the United States, Xi Jinping went too far by announcing that he was willing to work with the Trump administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences.

Previously, corruption problems had surfaced within the Chinese military's Rocket Force, which oversees the country's land-based missile and nuclear arsenals, and the powerful Equipment Development Department (EDD) of the Central Military Commissions ( CMC), which develops and acquires key military technologies. Due to the sensitivity of defense issues and in an effort to maintain tight control of the system, Xi Jinping has over the past two years fired a number of key figures from Rocket Force and linked to the EDD, installed officials more loyal and canceled corruption within the service and department.

Dong, who was an admiral in the country's navy, was seen as an outsider and unlikely to be tainted by the scandals that hit Rocket Force and the EDD. But there were hidden untruths. At a major Communist Party meeting earlier in 2024, Dong was not promoted to the CMC, the six-member body that oversees China's military, prompting observers to question his ability to keep this position. The country's defense chief is traditionally a member of both the CMC, headed by Xi, and the State Council, China's Cabinet-level executive body. Dong was also not a member of the State Council.

Xi Jinping has been ruthless in curbing corruption and punishing those found guilty or suspected of being guilty. In 2022, Xi fired Foreign Minister Qin Gang, whom he had appointed to the post, following reports of an extramarital affair with a Chinese woman in the United States. Yet corruption continues. This demonstrates the fragility of the authoritarian system with command and control. Xi could lose the reins of the administration.

If the investigation against Dong is interpreted as another spectacular failure of Beijing's internal control processes, the news nevertheless embarrasses Xi Jinping. Xi is unlikely to relax his grip and more heads could roll if he is discovered. The big question is: Will Xi Jinping be able to take the reins and deliver on China's future aspirations amid an unpredictable Trump administration?