‘Anti-graft’ crackdown: China’s parliament expels three senior military officials; who are they?

China’s parliament has expelled three high-ranking military officials, confirming their removal after the trio had been absent from key events in recent months.The officers’ dismissals by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) were the latest moves in the ongoing “anti-corruption crackdown,” the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Sunday, a day after their expulsion.The officials removed are Wang Renhua, head of the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) political and legal affairs Committee; Zhang Hongbing, political commissar of the People’s Armed Police; and Wang Peng, director of the CMC’s training department.However, they will remain full members of the Central Committee, the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CPC) top decision-making body.The CMC, the overall high command of China’s military, is headed by President Xi Jinping.The NPC also revoked the memberships of two other senior generals, among nine expelled from both the CPC and the Chinese military in October for “seriously violating party discipline.” They are former CMC vice chairman He Weidong and He Hongjun of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) political work department.Also Read | Purge unlike any other: Nine top Chinese generals expelled — Why Xi Jinping is cleaning house againThe ‘unlucky’ threeWang Renhua, 63, was promoted to admiral by Xi last year and put in charge of the military’s courts, procuratorates, and prisons. He previously served as director of the political unit at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert and as deputy head of the PLA Ground Forces political work Department. In 2017, he became the chief anti-corruption official for the PLA Navy’s East Sea Fleet.Zhang Hongbing, 59, was promoted to full general in 2022. Prior to that, he served as political commissar of the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command from 2019.Wang Peng, 61, was promoted to lieutenant general in December 2021 and appointed head of the CMC’s Training and Administration Department.Dozens of senior PLA officers have been sacked or disciplined under an intensified anti-corruption campaign carried out by Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.(With PTI inputs)