Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has appointed one of China’s few top generals with combat experience to a powerful military post, according to two people familiar with the matter.
General Li Zuocheng (李作成), 63, a veteran of the country’s brief and bloody 1979 war with Vietnam, was this week named chief of the Chinese Central Military Commission’s Joint Staff Department, the people said, asking not to be identified because the announcement was internal.
Li replaced General Fang Fenghui (房峰輝), who last week hosted the highest-ranking US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, and is expected to receive another position, they said.
Li’s appointment to the post — created last year as part of China’s largest military overhaul in six decades — underscores Xi’s desire to turn the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a force “able to fight and win wars.”
China has not been directly involved in a major conflict since the border clash with Vietnam.
The promotion puts Li directly under the 11-member commission, which is led by Xi and is due for a reshuffle after an upcoming Chinese Communist Party congress.
Since 2002, only one of seven vice chairmen of the elite commission have had combat experience on his service record.
The department is a central component to Xi’s reform and oversees PLA’s operations, intelligence and training.
Fang’s meeting with Dunford suggests that Li will play a top liaison role as tensions rise between the world’s two largest economies.
The move is among several promotions ahead of the congress, in which Xi is to preside over the replacement of much of the country’s leadership from the military to provincial governments. The five-yearly gathering will shape the influence for years to come of a president already considered the country’s most powerful leader in a generation.
Li, who most recently led the PLA’s ground forces, received China’s highest military honor for his leadership of an infantry company during the war. His unit was credited with killing 294 Vietnamese combatants in less than four weeks, earning him a reputation as China’s “most feared war hero,” the Beijing Daily reported after a previous promotion.
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