Two former State Councillors and Ministers of National Defense of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on April 7 for corruption, marking the heaviest punishment ever imposed on senior Chinese military officials. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily published an article today (April 8) stating that the military cannot tolerate those with “dual loyalty,” specifically naming Li and Wei. Analysts believe this move is meant to highlight their involvement in anti-Xi activities.
On May 8, the PLA Daily published a commentary emphasizing that the military cannot tolerate individuals with divided loyalty to the party and must not provide a haven for corrupt elements. The article reiterated the official characterization of Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu as having “collapsed beliefs and disloyalty,” stating that they had “severely polluted the political ecology of the military, causing great harm to the image of senior leaders, with extremely serious nature and severe impact, posing particularly enormous harm.” They were described as having “completely brought trouble upon themselves.”
The article also mentioned the military’s efforts to eliminate political risks.
On May 7, the PLA Military Court announced that Wei Fenghe was found guilty of bribery while Li Shangfu was convicted of both bribery and bribery-taking charges. Both were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, which upon expiration, commutes to life imprisonment without the possibility of sentence reduction or parole.
The public generally considers this sentence to be uncommonly harsh in recent years. Former Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, and former Commission Member Fang Fenghui, who fell from grace after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, were both sentenced to life imprisonment.
Commentator Li Lin suggested that in the past, several high officials categorized as “ambitious” by the authorities were only charged with corruption. Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu were also accused of corruption, but the military publication accusing them of “dual loyalty” implies their involvement in anti-Xi activities. Their heavier sentences came as a surprise since both were promoted by Xi himself.
Regarding the severe sentencing of Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, overseas scholar Yuan Hongbing, citing information from sources within the Chinese Communist Party system, told Epoch Times that Xi Jinping’s military espionage organization discovered that Li and Wei were politically disloyal to Xi. Xi’s objective was to initiate a war in the Taiwan Strait to take a crucial step towards the global expansion of communist totalitarianism and secure lifetime rule. However, Wei and Li, despite publicly expressing strong stances against Taiwan, privately believed that the failure of a Taiwan conflict was highly probable.
Yuan Hongbing claimed that Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu also engaged in so-called non-organizational activities within the CCP, where they pretended to align with the party’s agenda but were actually preparing to take control of China in the aftermath of a failed Taiwan conflict. Their non-organizational activities extended beyond the military to link officials between the military and party-government departments. As second-generation reds, Li Shangfu had deep ties to the Deng Xiaoping family, while Wei Fenghe had strong connections with the Jiang Zemin family. This is the fundamental reason why the authorities decided to heavily sentence these two individuals.
After the downfall of two members of the Central Military Commission, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, in January, Xi Jinping emphasized on March 7 during a meeting with the PLA National People’s Congress representatives that the military must not harbor individuals with “dual loyalty” to the party.
Former Communist Party Discipline Inspection Commission official Wang Youqun, writing in Epoch Times, suggested that Xi’s words revealed his deep concern about the “dual loyalty” within the senior military officials, which could be his greatest source of anxiety. It’s because if military personnel suddenly turn their guns, they don’t only directly threaten Xi’s power but also his personal safety.