Top PLA post for war veteran

Beijing: President Xi Jinping 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.

Gen Li Zuocheng, 63, a veteran of the country’s brief and bloody 1979 war with Vietnam, was this week named chief of the People Liberation Army’s Joint Staff Department, the people said, asking not to be identified because the announcement was internal.

He replaces Gen Fang Fenghui, who last week hosted the US’s top uniformed officer, Gen Joseph Dunford, and is expected to receive another position, they said.

Li’s appointment to the post – created last year as part of the largest military overhaul in six decades – underscores Xi’s desire to turn the 2.3mil member PLA into a force “able to fight and win wars”.

China has not been involved in a major conflict since the border clash with Vietnam.

The promotion puts Li directly under the 11-member Central Military Commission, which is led by Xi and due for a reshuffle after an upcoming Communist Party congress.

Only one of seven vice-chairmen of the elite CMC since 2002 had combat experience on his service record.

The Joint Staff Department is a central component to Xi’s reform and oversees PLA’s operations, intelligence and training.

Fang’s recent meeting with Dunford, the chairman of the US’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggests that Li will occupy a top liaison role at a time of increasing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The move is among several promotions ahead of the party congress, in which Xi will preside over the replacement of much of the country’s leadership from the military to provincial governments.

The twice-a-decade gathering will shape the influence for years to come of a president already considered the country’s most powerful leader.

Li received China’s highest military honour, a first-class merit for his leadership of an infantry company during the war. — Bloomberg