Just when China’s present crop of military leaders were attending a performance of  “Building the Great War with Flesh and Blood” to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the People’s Anti-Japanese War and the War Against Fascism organized by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), a real drama within the Chinese military was unfolding for its former top soldier.

On July 30, rumors that Guo Boxiong, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) – China’s highest military decisionmaking body – had been implicated in the anti-graft dragnet were finally confirmed. Following a decision by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Politburo, it was announced that Guo had been expelled from the party and his case was transferred to prosecutors within the military.

… James Char is a Research Analyst with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is the inaugural Wong Wai Ling Scholar in the Masters of Arts in Contemporary China (MACC) at NTU. His current research interests center on Chinese domestic politics, civil-military relations in China as well as China’s diplomatic strategies in the Global South.