Chinese media yesterday poured scorn on fallen military leader Guo Boxiong (郭伯雄), accusing the “demon” former top general of dishonesty since his youth and his family of selling military posts for cash.
Guo was for a decade one of the two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC), second only to the Chinese president in the top body of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
However, the 73-year-old, who stepped down in 2012, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Thursday and handed to military prosecutors over accusations of corruption, Xinhua news agency reported. He is one of the most senior military figures to be toppled in the anti-graft drive overseen by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The move — widely expected after he was put under investigation in April — means he will almost certainly face trial, with a guilty sentence and jail term effectively guaranteed to follow in a court system controlled by the party.
Another former CMC vice chairman, Xu Caihou (徐才厚), died of cancer earlier this year while under investigation.
“No matter what power one holds or how high one’s position is, if a person violates Party rules and law, he or she should be hunted down without compromise and without mercy,” Xinhua quoted the CCP’s politburo as saying in a statement on Guo’s case.
“One demon killed; all demons deterred,” said a commentary in the People’s Daily, the party’s official mouthpiece.
“We must raise high and wield the sharp anti-corruption sword, so that the idea of going corrupt will be nipped in the bud and the corrupt will pay a price,” it said.
Print and online media in China launched a broadside against Guo and his relatives, accusing the family of amassing immense wealth by exploiting his position.
Guo was regarded as of “poor moral quality” by his colleagues at a factory during the Great Famine because he changed the number on his grain ration coupons — required to buy food — to obtain one extra piece of steamed bread, news portal Netease.com said.
Academics estimate the famine of the late 1950s and early 1960s, triggered by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) disastrous policies, killed as many as 45 million people.
More recently, Guo’s family built up an enormous fortune after he ascended to the highest echelons of power, the online report said.
His wife, He Xiulian (何秀蓮), acted as a broker between him and senior military officers, taking bribes for promotions and refunding the money if the post did not materialise, it added.
Their son, Guo Zhenggang (郭正鋼), once one of China’s youngest generals, was put under investigation in March, Chinese media outlet thepaper.cn said.
The younger Guo’s wife made more than 1.5 billion yuan (US$242 million) over a little more than five years by leasing military land for shopping facilities and other activities, it added.
The PLA Daily branded the older Guo a “bad example” in an editorial yesterday.
His investigation and punishment “once again showed that the party is brave in facing up its problems and correcting its mistakes,” it said.
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