Fang Fenghui

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Fang Fenghui (2013)

Fang Fenghui ( Chinese  房 峰 辉 ; * April 1951 in Xianyang , Shaanxi ) is a former Chinese general in the People's Liberation Army , who was Chief of the General Staff from 2012 to 2017 and thus the military commander of the armed forces. In February 2019, a military court sentenced him to life imprisonment for corruption.

Life

Military and political career

Fang Fenghui was born the son of an officer under the maiden name Ma Xianyang ( 马 咸阳 ). After his mother remarried , his name changed to Fang Fenghui . After attending school, Fang joined the People's Liberation Army in 1968 and was a graduate of the National Defense University in Beijing . After training as an officer and various posts as an officer and general staff officer, he was deputy commander of an army group between 1997 and 1999. He was promoted to major general in 1998 and was commander of an army group from 1999 to 2003. Subsequently, he served between 2003 and 2007 as Chief of Staff of the Military Region Guangzhou and was simultaneously a member of the Party Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of the province of Guangdong . During this time, he was also promoted to lieutenant general in 2005 .

Fang Fenghui then acted as commander of the Beijing military region between 2007 and 2012 and also as deputy secretary in the Beijing Party Committee. On the XVII. At the 2007 Congress, he became a member of the Central Committee (CCP), of which he has been a member since then. At the same time, he was a member of the National People's Congress between 2008 and 2012 as a member of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army to represent the soldiers. In 2010 he was promoted to general . As such, he took over on October 25, 2012 as the successor to General Chen Bingde as Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army and thus as military commander of the armed forces. At the 18th party congress in 2012 he also became a member of the Central Military Commission .

Arrest, prosecution and conviction

In April 2017, Fang accompanied Chinese President Xi Jinping on his state visit to US President Donald Trump in Florida. On August 16, 2017, in Beijing, he discussed the North Korean crisis with Joseph Dunford , the US chairman of the United Joint Chiefs , and on August 21, 2017, he met with the Chief of the Thai Armed Forces. His subsequent sudden political fall appeared all the more surprising to Western observers. On August 26, 2017, it was announced that General Li Zuocheng was the new Chinese Chief of Staff to succeed Fang. At the 19th party congress on September 6, 2017, Fang was no longer allowed to attend, which was an unmistakable indication that he had gotten into trouble. Afterwards he was no longer seen in public. In January 2018, the state news agency Xinhua announced that it was being investigated for bribery and corruption. Fang was expelled from the CCP in October 2018 and lost all of his military ranks. A report from Xinhua said the case was "very grave" and that Fang had amassed "enormous unexplained fortunes" with no details of the allegations or exact sums. Western media speculated that the accumulated wealth might be so exorbitant that the Chinese authorities refused to disclose exact figures out of concern for the state's reputation among the population.

On February 20, 2019, Xinhua announced in just one sentence that Fang Fenghui had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court for bribery. His political rights were denied and his personal property confiscated.

Fang's arrest and sentencing took place in the context of President Xi Jingping's ongoing anti-corruption campaign . Western observers speculated that political power struggles may also play a role. Fang may have resisted Xi's efforts to overthrow the old power elites around Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou - in order to conceal their and his own involvement in corruption. It is possible that Fang Fenghui and General Zhang Yang, who was disempowered at the same time (who committed suicide in November 2017), planned a kind of coup against Xi in order to disempower him. Xi anticipated this with her dismissal.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 房 峰 辉 往事 ： 原名 “马 咸阳” ， 母亲 改嫁 后 改名 改姓 (History of Fang Fenghui: his previous name was "Ma Xianyang", but he changed the name after his mother remarried ). Eastday.com, January 15, 2018, Retrieved February 21, 2019 (Chinese (simplified)).
  2. ^ China, US agree on direct military communication. PressTV, August 17, 2017, accessed on February 21, 2019 .
  3. ↑ China promotes army general who fought Vietnam in 1979 border was. Reuters, August 27, 2017, accessed on February 20, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Charlotte Gao: Former Top General Fang Fenghui Jailed for Life for Bribery. the Diplomat, February 19, 2019, accessed on February 20, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Don Tse: Why General Fang Fenghui Was Purged. the Diplomat, January 14, 2018, accessed February 20, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Fang, Fenghui
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 房 峰 辉 (Chinese); Ma Xianyang (maiden name); 马 咸阳 (maiden name, Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION chinese officer, general (shang jiang) of the people's liberation army
DATE OF BIRTH April 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Xianyang , Shaanxi