On May 23, the Chinese Communist Party’s National Federation of Trade Unions’ Party Secretary and Vice Chairman, Xu Liuping, is under investigation. Xu Liuping had a long career in the defense industry, having held positions as the General Manager of China Ordnance Equipment Group and Chairman of First Automotive Group. Leadership at both of these companies had previously been implicated in corruption.
According to the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission of the CCP, Xu Liuping is being investigated for “serious violations of discipline and law”.
Public records show that Xu Liuping, born in October 1964 in Yangzhong, Jiangsu Province, joined China Ordnance Industry Corporation in June 1988. He had also served as the Director of the General Office of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission. In November 2005, he became the Deputy General Manager of China Ordnance Equipment Group; Executive Director and Senior Vice President of Guangzhou Automobile Group; President and Party Secretary of Changan Automobile Group. From December 2007 onwards, he served as the Chairman of Changan Group.
In October 2013, Xu Liuping became the General Manager of China Ordnance Equipment Group; in August 2017, he was appointed Chairman and Party Secretary of China First Automotive Group (FAW); in February 2023, he became the Party Secretary of the National Federation of Trade Unions of the CCP. He is also a Standing Committee member of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP.
The China Ordnance Equipment Group where Xu Liuping previously worked is one of the top ten military industrial enterprises of the CCP, primarily engaged in research, design, and manufacturing of military equipment. In recent years, there has been a continuous “purge” within the CCP’s military industrial system, resulting in the downfall or disappearance of several senior executives from state-owned military enterprises.
On April 14 of this year, the former Deputy General Manager of China Ordnance Equipment Group, Liu Weidong, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for bribery and fined 4 million RMB. Chen Guoying, who served as the General Manager of China Ordnance Equipment Group since February 2022, went missing after July 2023 and Zhang Yujin was appointed as the new General Manager on April 12, 2024. The CCP did not release any information about Chen Guoying’s dismissal.
Current Chairman of China Ordnance Equipment Group, Xu Xianping, has been mysteriously missing since early last January, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Several domestic media outlets have pointed out that Xu Liuping’s downfall marks the second time a Chairman and Party Secretary of China FAW has been investigated, following the case of Xu Jianyi. Xu Jianyi held the position from 2010 to 2015 and was sentenced to 11 years and 6 months in prison in March 2015 after being expelled from the Party and public office.
It is worth noting that China FAW, Changan Automobile, and Dongfeng Motor Co., although not purely military industrial enterprises, are involved in the production of military vehicles, falling under the category of the so-called “military-civil fusion” industry.
There were rumors last year of a potential merger between Dongfeng Motor Corporation, a state-owned central enterprise, and Changan Automotive Group, a subsidiary of China Ordnance Equipment Group. However, in June of the same year, it was confirmed that China Ordnance Equipment Group was split up, with Changan Automobile upgrading to an independent central enterprise, being placed on par with Dongfeng Motor and FAW Group.