Two former Chinese defense ministers accused of bribery have been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, according to state media.
The death sentences for Li Shangfu and his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, were issued by a Chinese military court on May 7, according to a brief report from state media outlet Xinhua News Agency, which tightly controls the flow of information out of the country.
There will be no possibility of reduction or parole, Xinhua stated, meaning that they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Li and Wei were among the first high-ranking military officers to face punishment in a renewed anti-corruption campaign that began in mid-2023. Since then, the purges have reached every branch of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with dozens of senior officers having been officially ousted on corruption-related charges.
Li was removed from the defense minister’s post in October 2023, just seven months after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping appointed him, making Li the country’s shortest-serving defense minister. In June 2024, the CCP expelled Li, accusing him of accepting and offering massive bribes and “severely polluting” the political ecology of the military equipment sector and companies.
A separate investigation into Wei, who served as the defense minister from 2018 to 2023, found that Wei accepted “huge amounts of money,” accusing him of suffering “a collapse in faith” and “betraying loyalty” to the Party, according to an official statement issued in June 2024.
The latest announcement from Xinhua didn’t provide further details of the former defense ministers’ alleged wrongdoing, including the amount of money they allegedly received.
China watchers previously linked Li’s downfall to his early career at the Equipment Development Department, a branch under the Central Military Commission responsible for weapons procurement. Since September 2017, Li served as the department’s director before being promoted to defense minister in March 2023.
In July 2023, a notice issued by the Central Military Commission stated that authorities were collecting tips about corruption in the equipment procurement system. The commission outlined in its guidelines what constitutes inappropriate conduct, including awarding contracts to companies owned by officials’ friends or family members and leaking confidential project information. Most notably, investigators are examining disciplinary violations that began in October 2017.
Wei, 72, is the first commander of the Rocket Force, a secretive PLA unit that manages the country’s conventional and nuclear missiles. Xi established the Rocket Forces in late 2015, as part of a sweeping overhaul of the armed forces aimed at consolidating his power and enhancing the military’s capabilities.
Over the past three years, all PLA officers who had led the missile arm—Wei, Zhou Yaning, Li Yuzhao, and Wang Houbin—have been caught up in the anti-corruption campaign.
The Pentagon’s latest assessment suggested that the expanding purges of PLA officials could impede the regime’s efforts to modernize its armed forces, which Beijing has devoted billions of dollars to achieve by 2027.
The political cleansing shows little sign of abating. In late January, Beijing announced that the country’s most senior general, Zhang Youxia, had been placed under investigation along with another military chief, Liu Zhenli. Zhang served as the first-ranking chairman of the Central Military Commission, which exercises the Party’s control over the PLA, and Liu is a member of this elite body.
Authorities have not offered any explanation for the sudden probe into the two military leaders beyond the accusation of serious violation of discipline and law.
According to people close to CCP leadership who recently spoke to The Epoch Times, the probes into Li and Wei have entered their final stages, and decisions are expected to be announced as early as July.
