In May, the associates of two former top People’s Liberation Army generals were removed. Now the generals themselves appear to be in trouble.
During a meeting of retired elder cadres in July, Liao Xilong and Li Jinai were taken away by the Chinese military’s disciplinary police, according to South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong English language daily. The Post obtained the information from two sources, one close to the military, and a military insider in Beijing.
Liao, 76, formerly headed the General Logistics Department, while Li, 74, was ex-chief of the powerful General Political Department, which engages in overseas espionage among a range of other activities. Earlier, overseas Chinese newspaper World Journal reported that Liao Xijun, the brother of Liao Xilong, and Zhu Xinjian, the former aide of Li Jinai, had been arrested.
Official Party media has so far been silent on the apparent punishment of the two retired generals and their associates.
If accurate, the information is potentially highly significant for the fate of former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin. Current Party leader Xi Jinping is, according to recent injunctions, holding senior cadres responsible for their underlings. Liao Xilong and Li Jinai have done much to prove their loyalty to their patron Jiang.
After launching a campaign to persecute Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline, on July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin made it clear that those who proactively suppressed the practice would be rewarded with riches and office.
Bo Xilai, a former member of the elite Politburo, had vigorously persecuted practitioners in the northeastern province of Liaoning and the southwestern megapolis Chongqing when he was overseeing both regions, because Jiang told him that “toughness in handling Falun Gong” would be his “political capital,” according to veteran Chinese journalist Jiang Weiping (no relation to Jiang Zemin).
When Li Jinai was promoted to head the military’s General Political Department in 2004, he also took over military’s “610 Office,” a Gestapo-like Party organization created by Jiang Zemin to oversee the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, according to Minghui.org, a clearinghouse for information about the Falun Gong persecution and those involved in it.
