The Beijing Garrison of the People’s Liberation Army has one of the most important and sensitive jobs in the armed forces: It guards other PLA facilities, provides logistical support to the secretive Central Guard Bureau, and assists in the protection of the Party’s top leadership.
China’s Communist Party has long stuck to the Maoist dictum that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Thus, alongside the garrison in political importance there is the Beijing Military Region, which protects the capital, and the Central Guards Bureau, which personally guards the top leaders.
It thus becomes significant when there are changes in the leadership of these three organs, such as the appointment of a new deputy commander and political commissar in the case of the garrison, and a raft of personnel changes in the military region, including the appointment of Xi Jinping loyalists, the demotion of officials close to purged members of the military, and new leaders.
All the action suggests that Xi Jinping is enhancing his control of these sensitive posts and protecting his flank as his anti-corruption campaign extends deep into the military and the Communist Party itself.
The instinctive secrecy of the Communist Party often means that new appointments to these positions go unannounced. Instead, officials simply show up in public wearing the new titles, and then observers know that a shuffle has taken place.
Such was the case with Wu Aimin, who attended a military conference on March 18 in Beijing as the deputy commander of the Beijing Garrison. (Previously, he was known as a commander in the third division of the garrison.)
Then there was Jiang Yong, who also appeared at a military conference on Jan. 8 with the new title as political commissar of the garrison, according to The Paper, a semi-official publication based in Shanghai. Jiang previously served in the Nanjing Military Region, as did Party leader Xi Jinping, and has thus come to be termed Xi’s loyalist.
