By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, July 27: In what is being considered another incident in the current Chinese President Xi Jinping’s campaign to purge China’s uppermost hierarchy and to retain only loyalist in the ranks, retired Chinese General Guo Boxiong has been sentenced to life imprisonment on corruption charges.
The former politburo member who was sentenced on Monday has been stripped of his rank as a general in the People’s Liberation Army and his assets freezed by the state. Guo has estimated to have accepted bribes worth $12.3m (£8.6m) according to South China Morning Post.
The General’s expulsion last year from the Communist Party marked a stark contrast to when he was Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission for a decade from 2002 to 2012 and a member of the 25-person elite in the Politburo.
The incumbent Chinese President’s anti graft campaign which brought down Guo started in 2013 when Xi assumed office and has since charged and punished several officials with his top priority of ending corruption in the military. Experts assess that corruption in Chinese military is widespread as is the civilian offices.
However, Guo Boxiong’s downfall is being seen more as a political move than a criminal owing to the General’s loyalty for former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, under whose tutelage he grew through the ranks. The connections between the two remained even after Jiang left the ranks. The similarities are being drawn to the fallen politicians Bo Xilai and Zhu Yongkang whose sentencing was sanctioned by the Politburo.
Thupten Samphel, the Director of the Tibet Policy Institute, exile Tibetan government’s Think Tank, told Phayul that the developments attached to the case are bewildering with Xi’s campaign to stump graft at one hand and at the same time his employment of the same campaign to topple his challengers. “If at all, the sentencing of the retired General Guo is done with an undiluted vigor to stymie corruption, then it is a welcome move, yet key Chinese thinkers and intellectuals in the mainland and outside have questioned Xi’s motive and how that has led to serve as a warning amongst the top ranks of China.”
The trial of the retired General took place behind closed doors where he reportedly admitted his charges, expressed regret, accepted the judgment and agreed not to appeal, according to Xinhua, China’s official mouthpiece.
