During her time in office, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has always been confrontational towards the People’s Republic of China. Baerbock is now heading to the Chinese capital for a one-day visit for what will probably be her last time as a member of the current German government.
The war in Ukraine will be a central part of the talks. And China clearly seems to be playing a double game. Outwardly, the Chinese leadership has always emphasized neutrality; in reality, it supports Putin politically, economically and technologically. Xi rolls out the red carpet for Putin – the two have met more than 40 times – fills the Russian war chest through crude oil imports and arranges extensive joint military drills, writes Angela Köckritz. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely that Baerbock will suddenly cozy up to China. It looks like it will be an interesting 24 hours.
Meanwhile, long-time China correspondent Andreas Landwehr, who will now also be writing for China.Table occasionally looks at the corruption scandal in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Defense. He concludes that the network of favors could even harm the military’s operational readiness. However, this does not mean that China’s capability to fight should be underestimated.
Today’s China Perspective column looks at Xiong’an, a planned city two hours away from Beijing, intended to relieve the administrative and economic burden in the capital. The project has the personal support of Xi Jinping. However, it has yet to spark the enthusiasm of those supposed to bring it to life. Well, according to state media, this vision is planned to last 1,000 years. That still leaves plenty of time to convince people.
When Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrives in Beijing on Monday for one day of talks, one issue will be very high on her agenda: the war in Ukraine. And the question of how Germany could persuade the Chinese leadership to scale back its support for Putin. Outwardly, the Chinese leadership has always emphasized its neutrality, but in reality, it supports Putin politically, economically and technologically. That is why NATO has called China a “decisive enabler.”
Xi rolls out the red carpet for Putin – the two have met over 40 times – fills the Russian war chest through crude oil imports and agrees to ever larger joint military drills. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Chinese exports to Russia have also risen by 60 percent. Imports include numerous dual-use components that benefit Putin in his campaign.
Publicly available customs data indicates that China sells dual-use goods worth around 300 million US dollars to Russia every month, which can be used in the production of missiles, drones and tanks. “In Kyiv, we now have a very negative view of China,” says a Ukrainian security consultant. “70 to 80 percent of the components we find in Russian weapons are Chinese.”
For a long time, it seemed as if China was reluctant to supply Russia with weapons – for fear of exposing itself to sanctions from the West. In September, however, the Reuters news agency published a report based on European intelligence sources. The report stated that Russia had set up a weapons program in China to develop lethal long-range drones for the war in Ukraine. IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of the state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, is said to have developed and tested a new drone called Garpiya 3 in China in collaboration with Chinese specialists. In mid-November, Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, called the evidence “convincing.”
At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September, Putin also announced joint drone production with China in eastern Russia – experts assume this will also include dual-use drones.
The Chinese leadership has also reacted with conspicuous reservation to Kim Jong-un’s decision to deploy missiles and up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia. Security experts fear that Putin might reward Kim for his help with military technology that could decisively advance the North Korean nuclear weapons program. “If the Chinese leadership had been very unhappy about the deployment of North Korean soldiers, they would have embraced Kim more strongly or threatened him,” says one security adviser.
So there is more than enough to discuss. But the question remains: How could Foreign Minister Baerbock sway the Chinese leadership? What threats or offers could she make? Her negotiating position is anything but easy. Firstly, because the Europeans – unlike the US – have to coordinate their approach. This requires highly complicated agreements. Secondly, the German government is divided on how it wants to shape its economic relationship with China. This is why Alexander Gabuev, Director at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, does not believe that Baerbock could persuade the Chinese government in exchange for not raising tariffs on electric vehicles, for example.
There is currently only one instrument in the EU’s toolbox that Annalena Baerbock could use, says Gabuev: sanctions. “For example, sanctions could be imposed on Chinese financial service providers who earn money from the payment transactions of dual-use goods.”
However, sanctions would also require consensus within the EU. This would require the approval of Russia-friendly Viktor Orbán, for example. His self-confidence has increased since the US election, as he is the only European leader who has a good relationship with Trump, a man who places great value on personal loyalty. And finally, Germany will hold snap elections on February 23 – no one knows whether Baerbock and her party will be part of the new federal government.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Trump appointed retired 80-year-old General Keith Kellog as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine. Kellog served as Chief of Staff of the National Security Council in the White House and Security Advisor to then Vice President Mike Pence during Trump’s term in office from 2017 to early 2021. Gabuev explains what is known so far about Kellog’s peace plan for Ukraine: The conflict will be frozen along the front line, there will be neither buffer zones nor peacekeepers. Some sanctions against Russia will be lifted. Ukraine’s NATO membership will be postponed for the time being, but Ukraine will be consistently rearmed to be able to withstand another attack by Putin. However, it is not clear whether Trump would accept the plan.
In the absence of a binding security treaty, Ukraine would be at the mercy of future US administrations, says Gabuev. “However, if the rearmament of Ukraine were to be pursued consistently, this would greatly increase the price for Putin to attack again. But he doesn’t want to give up his imperial dream.” Gabuev therefore believes it is likely that Putin would not agree to such a deal.
The Ukrainian side would also refuse any deal that did not offer them sufficient security guarantees against another Russian attack. Then the fighting would continue. “We must not forget that Putin is not a giant,” says Gabuev. If the West continued to provide Ukraine with extensive support, he, too, would eventually run out of soldiers. “Putin could partially mobilize, but that would be at the expense of its labor force. In two years, the challenges for the Russian economy could be too high.” It would be a much bloodier and longer path, one that could cost many lives on both sides and Ukraine territory.
The negotiations will be tough. Should they actually succeed, Gabuev proposes peacekeeping troops along the ceasefire line from countries that Putin would not like to anger. For example, from Turkey, India and China.
In a new corruption scandal in China’s military, state and party leader Xi Jinping has dismissed Miao Hua, a member of his powerful military commission. The admiral has been accused of “serious violations of party discipline” – a euphemism for corruption. The ouster of the influential military officer came just one day after reports of an investigation against Defense Minister Dong Jun, who had once served under Miao Hua when he was still political commissar of the Navy.
There have been rumors for some time about investigations against Miao, about which the Defense Minister may also have been questioned. It would be no surprise to anyone if Dong became the third Chinese defense minister to fall from grace over corruption. Except perhaps Xi, who chose the 63-year-old for the post almost a year ago after a thorough assessment. His predecessors, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, had previously been sacked for corruption.
As the Financial Times reported, citing US officials, the Minister of Defense is being investigated as part of a “wider corruption probe.” A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense dismissed the report as “pure fabrication.” However, the Financial Times also revealed the investigation against Defense Minister Li in 2023, who was later forced out of office. And Miao, who has now been relieved of his duties, could also cast a “shadow” over other military officers.
As a member of the Military Commission, Miao was responsible for political work and stood above the Defense Minister, who was more responsible for diplomacy and who – unlike his predecessors – was surprisingly not appointed to Xi’s highest military body. Like the dismissal of Miao, the fall of the Defense Minister would also be embarrassing for the Party leader, experts say. “All were appointed by Xi Jinping, presumably after careful consideration and as survivors of previous anti-corruption campaigns,” and are then sacked for severe violations of party discipline, says Professor June Teufel Dreyer from the University of Miami.
According to Dreyer, the question is what the allegations of corruption say about the staffing system at the top of the People’s Republic and the combat capability of the Chinese military. Many members of the military elite are now also likely to check their bank accounts or those of their families for “irregularities.”
The common Chinese citizen, on the other hand, is hardly surprised. Many speak of soldiers who are forced to give officers money and gifts in exchange for being allowed to complete training during their military service. There are also stories of promotions being bought by bribing officers or giving money and gifts to their families. “The system is corrupt,” says a Chinese source familiar with the system’s workings.
In the system of relationships, nepotism, mutual favors and rewards for loyal followers, many consider corruption the necessary “grease.” However, harmful “side effects” include inefficiency, injustice, abuse of power and the undermining of institutions – as well as a lack of operational readiness in the military, as experts warn.
When Xi came to power in 2012 as the new party leader, he made the fight against corruption his trademark, which made him popular with the people and gave him legitimacy. He set out to fight “tigers and flies.” Xi was also the first CP leader to take on the military elite: He overthrew Generals Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, also two members of the powerful Military Commission.
It remains unclear what is an upright fight against corruption and what is a power struggle. There are rumors of infighting between officers of the old “Shanghai Gang” around Xi’s predecessor Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022, or the “Xi Family Army,” which in turn is said to be divided into the “Zhejiang Gang,” “Fujian Gang” and “Shandong Gang,” as Professor Andrew Wedeman from Georgia State University describes in the East Asia Forum. The fact that the Navy was allowed to appoint the minister of defense for the first time may also have led to resistance from the other military branches.
“The People’s Liberation Army has long played a role in the CCP elite’s power struggles,” Andrew Erickson of the US Naval War College in Newport notes. “Xi is using his anti-corruption campaign not only for domestic political legitimacy and to stem an extreme undermining of military combat readiness, but also to eliminate his political enemies,” says Erickson. He warns that the ongoing corruption will not prevent Xi from preparing or even waging war.
The accusations often center around procurement. The government provides enormous sums of money for an opaque defense procurement process, says Bethany Allen from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). “China hasn’t fought a real war in decades, which can contribute to the perception that the real consequences of corruption are small.”
Xi wants to crack down on this, as only through severity can a willingness to fight be achieved. In this way, the People’s Liberation Army also guarantees the power and security of the Communist Party. “It is a state within a state and therefore corruption is ‘natural’ and an insoluble problem,” says Willy Lam, a professor at the Center for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. However, he wonders whether Xi has perhaps already “lost control of the top brass of the People’s Liberation Army.”
With Dong’s experience as an admiral, Xi had actually chosen the right man for the growing cooperation with Russia and the missions in the South China Sea or conquest of Taiwan. Like Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan, he hails from Shandong province, which, according to Japanese news agency Nikkei, has triggered speculation that “Dong is among those who are close to Peng.”
The famous folk singer is a major general in the People’s Liberation Army. In May, a photo of the First Lady in uniform in the Hong Kong newspaper “Sing Tao Daily” caused heated discussions about whether Peng Liyuan had a say in staffing decisions. Under the picture showing Peng visiting a military training center, she was described as a “full member of the examination board of the Military Commission.” Long-time China expert Lam also reports that the president’s wife is now responsible for recommending promotions in the army and is said to have “picked Dong.”
More than seven years after the Xiong’an project was unveiled, a new city is taking shape and growing 110 kilometers south of Beijing. Edifices and clusters of high-rise apartment buildings are already erected; grocery stores and bookstores can be seen at street corners, although business looks slow; the only Starbucks and the only McDonald’s in town are open every day in the city’s fenced administrative center.
Guides at the museum showing the city’s development concept and planning boasted about Xiong’an as a “smart city” and its prospects as a hub for artificial intelligence. Locals buzzed on Douyin, the domestic version of TikTok, about the rumor of a concert by pop star Joker Xue Zhiqian being held soon in the city’s newly completed stadium. But on sunny autumn weekdays, the streets are as empty as Berlin on Christmas morning. Even on the expressway that connects Beijing and Xiong’an, there is hardly a soul on the road.
Ground was broken in 2017 to build a new metropolis to accommodate state companies and public institutions to be relocated from Beijing, which President Xi Jinping considered too crowded. The new area was also expected to stimulate growth of the surrounding Hebei Province. However, as the project is materializing from blueprint to reality, the Chinese government appears to face an uphill struggle to move State enterprises and universities to the “new area,” Xi’s pet project, lauded by the People’s Daily as “a project masterminded with a vision for a thousand years” (千年大计).
Five companies have officially announced that they will relocate their headquarters to Xiong’an. The office building of one of them, the China Satellite Network Corp, was completed in September. Buildings for the other four are under construction. Who else is coming? It’s a secret. Indeed, despite the steady trickling of news on official news outlets about the Xiong’an project’s progress, little substantial information was provided. “The open secret is: no one in Beijing really wants to move to Xiong’an,” said one executive in a major state firm.
Of the five state-owned companies, only Huaneng – one of China’s largest electricity producers – is considered an established company. The other four are either brand new or have emerged from restructured state-owned enterprises, so there is little opposition to their relocation to Xiong’an. In addition, four public universities have agreed to relocate – none of them are elite universities. Land has already been allocated, and signs have been erected, but there are no plans yet for when construction will begin.
Among the five above-mentioned state firms, only one – Huaneng, one of China’s five largest electricity generation companies – is an established company. The other four are either brand-new companies or products of restructured or merged state companies, which means little resistance to moving them to Xiong’an. Four public universities said they would move here – none of them are elite universities. Land lots were already assigned with sign poles erected, but no plans were given about when the construction would start.
It takes about one hour by bullet train and less than 2 hours by car to travel between Beijing and Xiong’an. Commuting would be extremely tedious and time-consuming. So people working in Xiong’an have to live in the city, preferably with their families. This leads to the necessity of schools and hospitals of comparable quality to those in Beijing.
The Beijing No.4 High School, an elite school, which Xi attended decades ago, and the Beijing Xuanwu Hospital, a top institution known for cerebral surgery and geriatrics, have both opened subsidiaries in Xiong’an. However, few teachers and doctors working in them moved there from Beijing. Rather, they are new hires coming from all over China.
Painstaking efforts to persuade people to come to Xiong’an can be visibly seen. In addition to the museum on the master plan of the area, the city also has two other exhibition venues: one for government officials and experts, which is not open to the public; the other for employees of firms that the government is trying to convince to move here, and for the public. Visitors to the second one must sign a confidentiality agreement.
Compared to Shenzhen and Shanghai’s Pudong, two milestone new areas symbolizing China’s development between the 1980s and 2010s, Xiong’an is, for its critics, a misguided project from the very beginning. The development level of the surrounding Hebei Province and local circumstances means the project is unlikely to drive Hebei’s growth in the way that Shenzhen and Pudong did to their neighboring areas, they said.
The natural environment and topography don’t help, either. Underground water in the area and the Baiyangdian Lake, situated right next to the city’s south, are both heavily polluted. Worse, the Xiong’an area is only 10 meters above sea level, making it highly vulnerable to floods. Experts pointed out these problems before the project was launched, but the doubts were ignored and went undisclosed.
Their worries were proven to be valid when great floods ravaged the area in the summer of 2023. To protect Xiong’an, authorities diverted floods to the neighboring city of Zhuozhou. Towns, villages and enormous swathes of farmlands were inundated, rousing an uproar. Figures on casualties and losses were not reported.
From its birth, Xiong’an has been a project that left little room for market forces. In a move believed to reflect Xi’s loathe of property market speculation, trading of land in the area was frozen from the moment the project was announced. People working for the relocated State companies and institutions are all eligible to buy new apartments at subsidized prices dictated by the government. The market functions only for second-grade apartment buildings constructed for people outside the official relocation schemes and for apartments built for local residents whose land was used for the project.
Despite all these flaws, this white elephant project will definitely lumber on as long as Xi is in power. But it will probably evolve into something different from what was originally planned.
It took more than 70 years before the remains of 43 members of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army were returned from South Korea to the People’s Republic. The soldiers had joined the Korean War in October 1950 to fight on the side of the communist North against the US-supported Republic of Korea in the South. On Thursday, the coffins were received with military honors in Shenyang, the capital of the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning.
During her time in office, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has always been confrontational towards the People’s Republic of China. Baerbock is now heading to the Chinese capital for a one-day visit for what will probably be her last time as a member of the current German government.
The war in Ukraine will be a central part of the talks. And China clearly seems to be playing a double game. Outwardly, the Chinese leadership has always emphasized neutrality; in reality, it supports Putin politically, economically and technologically. Xi rolls out the red carpet for Putin – the two have met more than 40 times – fills the Russian war chest through crude oil imports and arranges extensive joint military drills, writes Angela Köckritz. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely that Baerbock will suddenly cozy up to China. It looks like it will be an interesting 24 hours.
Meanwhile, long-time China correspondent Andreas Landwehr, who will now also be writing for China.Table occasionally looks at the corruption scandal in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Defense. He concludes that the network of favors could even harm the military’s operational readiness. However, this does not mean that China’s capability to fight should be underestimated.
Today’s China Perspective column looks at Xiong’an, a planned city two hours away from Beijing, intended to relieve the administrative and economic burden in the capital. The project has the personal support of Xi Jinping. However, it has yet to spark the enthusiasm of those supposed to bring it to life. Well, according to state media, this vision is planned to last 1,000 years. That still leaves plenty of time to convince people.
When Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrives in Beijing on Monday for one day of talks, one issue will be very high on her agenda: the war in Ukraine. And the question of how Germany could persuade the Chinese leadership to scale back its support for Putin. Outwardly, the Chinese leadership has always emphasized its neutrality, but in reality, it supports Putin politically, economically and technologically. That is why NATO has called China a “decisive enabler.”
Xi rolls out the red carpet for Putin – the two have met over 40 times – fills the Russian war chest through crude oil imports and agrees to ever larger joint military drills. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Chinese exports to Russia have also risen by 60 percent. Imports include numerous dual-use components that benefit Putin in his campaign.
Publicly available customs data indicates that China sells dual-use goods worth around 300 million US dollars to Russia every month, which can be used in the production of missiles, drones and tanks. “In Kyiv, we now have a very negative view of China,” says a Ukrainian security consultant. “70 to 80 percent of the components we find in Russian weapons are Chinese.”
For a long time, it seemed as if China was reluctant to supply Russia with weapons – for fear of exposing itself to sanctions from the West. In September, however, the Reuters news agency published a report based on European intelligence sources. The report stated that Russia had set up a weapons program in China to develop lethal long-range drones for the war in Ukraine. IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of the state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, is said to have developed and tested a new drone called Garpiya 3 in China in collaboration with Chinese specialists. In mid-November, Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, called the evidence “convincing.”
At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September, Putin also announced joint drone production with China in eastern Russia – experts assume this will also include dual-use drones.
The Chinese leadership has also reacted with conspicuous reservation to Kim Jong-un’s decision to deploy missiles and up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia. Security experts fear that Putin might reward Kim for his help with military technology that could decisively advance the North Korean nuclear weapons program. “If the Chinese leadership had been very unhappy about the deployment of North Korean soldiers, they would have embraced Kim more strongly or threatened him,” says one security adviser.
So there is more than enough to discuss. But the question remains: How could Foreign Minister Baerbock sway the Chinese leadership? What threats or offers could she make? Her negotiating position is anything but easy. Firstly, because the Europeans – unlike the US – have to coordinate their approach. This requires highly complicated agreements. Secondly, the German government is divided on how it wants to shape its economic relationship with China. This is why Alexander Gabuev, Director at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, does not believe that Baerbock could persuade the Chinese government in exchange for not raising tariffs on electric vehicles, for example.
There is currently only one instrument in the EU’s toolbox that Annalena Baerbock could use, says Gabuev: sanctions. “For example, sanctions could be imposed on Chinese financial service providers who earn money from the payment transactions of dual-use goods.”
However, sanctions would also require consensus within the EU. This would require the approval of Russia-friendly Viktor Orbán, for example. His self-confidence has increased since the US election, as he is the only European leader who has a good relationship with Trump, a man who places great value on personal loyalty. And finally, Germany will hold snap elections on February 23 – no one knows whether Baerbock and her party will be part of the new federal government.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Trump appointed retired 80-year-old General Keith Kellog as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine. Kellog served as Chief of Staff of the National Security Council in the White House and Security Advisor to then Vice President Mike Pence during Trump’s term in office from 2017 to early 2021. Gabuev explains what is known so far about Kellog’s peace plan for Ukraine: The conflict will be frozen along the front line, there will be neither buffer zones nor peacekeepers. Some sanctions against Russia will be lifted. Ukraine’s NATO membership will be postponed for the time being, but Ukraine will be consistently rearmed to be able to withstand another attack by Putin. However, it is not clear whether Trump would accept the plan.
In the absence of a binding security treaty, Ukraine would be at the mercy of future US administrations, says Gabuev. “However, if the rearmament of Ukraine were to be pursued consistently, this would greatly increase the price for Putin to attack again. But he doesn’t want to give up his imperial dream.” Gabuev therefore believes it is likely that Putin would not agree to such a deal.
The Ukrainian side would also refuse any deal that did not offer them sufficient security guarantees against another Russian attack. Then the fighting would continue. “We must not forget that Putin is not a giant,” says Gabuev. If the West continued to provide Ukraine with extensive support, he, too, would eventually run out of soldiers. “Putin could partially mobilize, but that would be at the expense of its labor force. In two years, the challenges for the Russian economy could be too high.” It would be a much bloodier and longer path, one that could cost many lives on both sides and Ukraine territory.
The negotiations will be tough. Should they actually succeed, Gabuev proposes peacekeeping troops along the ceasefire line from countries that Putin would not like to anger. For example, from Turkey, India and China.
In a new corruption scandal in China’s military, state and party leader Xi Jinping has dismissed Miao Hua, a member of his powerful military commission. The admiral has been accused of “serious violations of party discipline” – a euphemism for corruption. The ouster of the influential military officer came just one day after reports of an investigation against Defense Minister Dong Jun, who had once served under Miao Hua when he was still political commissar of the Navy.
There have been rumors for some time about investigations against Miao, about which the Defense Minister may also have been questioned. It would be no surprise to anyone if Dong became the third Chinese defense minister to fall from grace over corruption. Except perhaps Xi, who chose the 63-year-old for the post almost a year ago after a thorough assessment. His predecessors, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, had previously been sacked for corruption.
As the Financial Times reported, citing US officials, the Minister of Defense is being investigated as part of a “wider corruption probe.” A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense dismissed the report as “pure fabrication.” However, the Financial Times also revealed the investigation against Defense Minister Li in 2023, who was later forced out of office. And Miao, who has now been relieved of his duties, could also cast a “shadow” over other military officers.
As a member of the Military Commission, Miao was responsible for political work and stood above the Defense Minister, who was more responsible for diplomacy and who – unlike his predecessors – was surprisingly not appointed to Xi’s highest military body. Like the dismissal of Miao, the fall of the Defense Minister would also be embarrassing for the Party leader, experts say. “All were appointed by Xi Jinping, presumably after careful consideration and as survivors of previous anti-corruption campaigns,” and are then sacked for severe violations of party discipline, says Professor June Teufel Dreyer from the University of Miami.
According to Dreyer, the question is what the allegations of corruption say about the staffing system at the top of the People’s Republic and the combat capability of the Chinese military. Many members of the military elite are now also likely to check their bank accounts or those of their families for “irregularities.”
The common Chinese citizen, on the other hand, is hardly surprised. Many speak of soldiers who are forced to give officers money and gifts in exchange for being allowed to complete training during their military service. There are also stories of promotions being bought by bribing officers or giving money and gifts to their families. “The system is corrupt,” says a Chinese source familiar with the system’s workings.
In the system of relationships, nepotism, mutual favors and rewards for loyal followers, many consider corruption the necessary “grease.” However, harmful “side effects” include inefficiency, injustice, abuse of power and the undermining of institutions – as well as a lack of operational readiness in the military, as experts warn.
When Xi came to power in 2012 as the new party leader, he made the fight against corruption his trademark, which made him popular with the people and gave him legitimacy. He set out to fight “tigers and flies.” Xi was also the first CP leader to take on the military elite: He overthrew Generals Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, also two members of the powerful Military Commission.
It remains unclear what is an upright fight against corruption and what is a power struggle. There are rumors of infighting between officers of the old “Shanghai Gang” around Xi’s predecessor Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022, or the “Xi Family Army,” which in turn is said to be divided into the “Zhejiang Gang,” “Fujian Gang” and “Shandong Gang,” as Professor Andrew Wedeman from Georgia State University describes in the East Asia Forum. The fact that the Navy was allowed to appoint the minister of defense for the first time may also have led to resistance from the other military branches.
“The People’s Liberation Army has long played a role in the CCP elite’s power struggles,” Andrew Erickson of the US Naval War College in Newport notes. “Xi is using his anti-corruption campaign not only for domestic political legitimacy and to stem an extreme undermining of military combat readiness, but also to eliminate his political enemies,” says Erickson. He warns that the ongoing corruption will not prevent Xi from preparing or even waging war.
The accusations often center around procurement. The government provides enormous sums of money for an opaque defense procurement process, says Bethany Allen from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). “China hasn’t fought a real war in decades, which can contribute to the perception that the real consequences of corruption are small.”
Xi wants to crack down on this, as only through severity can a willingness to fight be achieved. In this way, the People’s Liberation Army also guarantees the power and security of the Communist Party. “It is a state within a state and therefore corruption is ‘natural’ and an insoluble problem,” says Willy Lam, a professor at the Center for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. However, he wonders whether Xi has perhaps already “lost control of the top brass of the People’s Liberation Army.”
With Dong’s experience as an admiral, Xi had actually chosen the right man for the growing cooperation with Russia and the missions in the South China Sea or conquest of Taiwan. Like Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan, he hails from Shandong province, which, according to Japanese news agency Nikkei, has triggered speculation that “Dong is among those who are close to Peng.”
The famous folk singer is a major general in the People’s Liberation Army. In May, a photo of the First Lady in uniform in the Hong Kong newspaper “Sing Tao Daily” caused heated discussions about whether Peng Liyuan had a say in staffing decisions. Under the picture showing Peng visiting a military training center, she was described as a “full member of the examination board of the Military Commission.” Long-time China expert Lam also reports that the president’s wife is now responsible for recommending promotions in the army and is said to have “picked Dong.”
More than seven years after the Xiong’an project was unveiled, a new city is taking shape and growing 110 kilometers south of Beijing. Edifices and clusters of high-rise apartment buildings are already erected; grocery stores and bookstores can be seen at street corners, although business looks slow; the only Starbucks and the only McDonald’s in town are open every day in the city’s fenced administrative center.
Guides at the museum showing the city’s development concept and planning boasted about Xiong’an as a “smart city” and its prospects as a hub for artificial intelligence. Locals buzzed on Douyin, the domestic version of TikTok, about the rumor of a concert by pop star Joker Xue Zhiqian being held soon in the city’s newly completed stadium. But on sunny autumn weekdays, the streets are as empty as Berlin on Christmas morning. Even on the expressway that connects Beijing and Xiong’an, there is hardly a soul on the road.
Ground was broken in 2017 to build a new metropolis to accommodate state companies and public institutions to be relocated from Beijing, which President Xi Jinping considered too crowded. The new area was also expected to stimulate growth of the surrounding Hebei Province. However, as the project is materializing from blueprint to reality, the Chinese government appears to face an uphill struggle to move State enterprises and universities to the “new area,” Xi’s pet project, lauded by the People’s Daily as “a project masterminded with a vision for a thousand years” (千年大计).
Five companies have officially announced that they will relocate their headquarters to Xiong’an. The office building of one of them, the China Satellite Network Corp, was completed in September. Buildings for the other four are under construction. Who else is coming? It’s a secret. Indeed, despite the steady trickling of news on official news outlets about the Xiong’an project’s progress, little substantial information was provided. “The open secret is: no one in Beijing really wants to move to Xiong’an,” said one executive in a major state firm.
Of the five state-owned companies, only Huaneng – one of China’s largest electricity producers – is considered an established company. The other four are either brand new or have emerged from restructured state-owned enterprises, so there is little opposition to their relocation to Xiong’an. In addition, four public universities have agreed to relocate – none of them are elite universities. Land has already been allocated, and signs have been erected, but there are no plans yet for when construction will begin.
Among the five above-mentioned state firms, only one – Huaneng, one of China’s five largest electricity generation companies – is an established company. The other four are either brand-new companies or products of restructured or merged state companies, which means little resistance to moving them to Xiong’an. Four public universities said they would move here – none of them are elite universities. Land lots were already assigned with sign poles erected, but no plans were given about when the construction would start.
It takes about one hour by bullet train and less than 2 hours by car to travel between Beijing and Xiong’an. Commuting would be extremely tedious and time-consuming. So people working in Xiong’an have to live in the city, preferably with their families. This leads to the necessity of schools and hospitals of comparable quality to those in Beijing.
The Beijing No.4 High School, an elite school, which Xi attended decades ago, and the Beijing Xuanwu Hospital, a top institution known for cerebral surgery and geriatrics, have both opened subsidiaries in Xiong’an. However, few teachers and doctors working in them moved there from Beijing. Rather, they are new hires coming from all over China.
Painstaking efforts to persuade people to come to Xiong’an can be visibly seen. In addition to the museum on the master plan of the area, the city also has two other exhibition venues: one for government officials and experts, which is not open to the public; the other for employees of firms that the government is trying to convince to move here, and for the public. Visitors to the second one must sign a confidentiality agreement.
Compared to Shenzhen and Shanghai’s Pudong, two milestone new areas symbolizing China’s development between the 1980s and 2010s, Xiong’an is, for its critics, a misguided project from the very beginning. The development level of the surrounding Hebei Province and local circumstances means the project is unlikely to drive Hebei’s growth in the way that Shenzhen and Pudong did to their neighboring areas, they said.
The natural environment and topography don’t help, either. Underground water in the area and the Baiyangdian Lake, situated right next to the city’s south, are both heavily polluted. Worse, the Xiong’an area is only 10 meters above sea level, making it highly vulnerable to floods. Experts pointed out these problems before the project was launched, but the doubts were ignored and went undisclosed.
Their worries were proven to be valid when great floods ravaged the area in the summer of 2023. To protect Xiong’an, authorities diverted floods to the neighboring city of Zhuozhou. Towns, villages and enormous swathes of farmlands were inundated, rousing an uproar. Figures on casualties and losses were not reported.
From its birth, Xiong’an has been a project that left little room for market forces. In a move believed to reflect Xi’s loathe of property market speculation, trading of land in the area was frozen from the moment the project was announced. People working for the relocated State companies and institutions are all eligible to buy new apartments at subsidized prices dictated by the government. The market functions only for second-grade apartment buildings constructed for people outside the official relocation schemes and for apartments built for local residents whose land was used for the project.
Despite all these flaws, this white elephant project will definitely lumber on as long as Xi is in power. But it will probably evolve into something different from what was originally planned.
It took more than 70 years before the remains of 43 members of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army were returned from South Korea to the People’s Republic. The soldiers had joined the Korean War in October 1950 to fight on the side of the communist North against the US-supported Republic of Korea in the South. On Thursday, the coffins were received with military honors in Shenyang, the capital of the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning.
