Three Chinese military officers committed suicide this month
A Major-General in the People’s Liberation Army has committed suicide, the third senior officer to do so this month, amid Chinese President Xi Jinping’s widening anti-corruption crackdown, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Major-General Chen Jie (54) reportedly killed himself on August 5 through an overdose of sleeping pills. The daily said there was no conclusive evidence that his suicide was linked to corruption.
However, the timing is curious, as he was seen as a rising star whose promotion was due a just day later.
A rising star
The Post said this was the third military suicide within a week since the beginning of August.
Earlier, a publicity director of a political office in Nanjing, also of the Southern Theatre Command, had committed suicide. Besides, Senior Captain Li Fuwen, director of the navy’s logistics enterprises management centre, jumped to death from a building in the navy’s complex in Beijing, the daily reported, citing two unnamed independent sources.
All the three suicides come after two former leading generals — Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong — came under investigation. Both officers were Vice-Chairmen of the powerful Central Military Commission. This was followed by the detention of Gen. Tian Xiusi, a former political commissar in the PLA Air Force and a member of the Communist Party’s 18th Central Committee. Gen. Tian was seen as an ally of Gen. Guo and Gen. Xu.
The daily cited military watchers as saying that the series of suicides suggested that President Xi’s campaign against graft within the PLA had entered its second round.
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