‘Tigers’ in the military

军中老虎

The military authorities have made public the corruption cases involving three other senior officers. The military officers have been accused of “seriously violating the Party’s discipline and the country’s law”. Within about 100 days, 33 “tigers” (high-ranking corrupt officers) in the military have fallen in the anti-corruption campaign.

Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of the Cen- tral Military Commission, reiterated that the military should reflect upon and learn lessons from the corruption case against former CMC vice-chairman Xu Caihou, who died of bladder cancer in March. Xu had taken advantage of his position to take massive bribes in exchange for helping officers get promotion.

Fan said the People’s Liberation Army should eliminate the negative influence of Xu in the military and take forward the anti-corruption campaign.

The frequent exposure of corrupt “tigers” in the PLA reflect contradictions and problems such as bureaucratism and abuse of power to seek personal gains, which severe- ly undermines the images of the Party and the military. The anti-corruption drive may make the military “lose face” in the short term, but in the long run it will benefit it immensely.

Corrupt officials in the military should be punished according to the Party’s discipline and the country’s law. But the public should not be worried about the military as a whole, because it is still a force of mostly honest and dedicated personnel. It’s understandable that some netizens have condemned the corrupt military officers, but the incorruptible officers and soldiers should not take the flak for the actions of some corrupt officers.