Chinese President Xi Jinping said there are "deep-rooted problems" in China's military policy, ideology, way of working and discipline, Reuters reported, referring to information from China Central Television today, BTA reported.
"We must not leave places in the army for corrupt elements to hide," Xi told a military-policy working conference this week in the northwestern Chinese city of Yan'an, where the Chinese Communist Party was founded.
"Companies at all levels, especially senior staff, must stand up and have the courage to put their reputations behind them and expose their shortcomings. They need to look deeply into themselves /.../, make serious corrections and solve problems at the very beginning of thinking about them", the Chinese leader also stated.
The political trials the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is now facing are "complicated and complex", and the situations in the country, in the party and in the army are undergoing "both complex and profound changes", Xi Jinping said in program address to senior military personnel, including the second and third in command of the KPA - Zhang Yuxia and He Weidong.
In addition, the Chinese president is pushing for "expanding the range of sanctions for overt and covert corruption" and to strengthen surveillance of senior military personnel.
Since last year, China's military has been undergoing a major anti-corruption purge, with parliament removing nine generals from the KNA and at least four chiefs in the military's space industry, including the strategic missile forces, which conduct tactical and nuclear missile tests. A number of other people in senior positions in the defense industry were also dismissed, Reuters recalls.
The name of China's former defense minister, Li Shanfu, was removed in February from the website of the Central Military Commission, the Chinese Communist Party's top military command. Li was removed without explanation from the post of military minister in October last year.
The three-day conference in Yan'an, which ended today, was the first such forum since 2014, when Xi also organized a working political-military conference in the city of Gutian on the anniversary of a forum in which Mao Zedong took control of China's Red Army (the predecessor of the Chinese people's army).
The conference in Yan'an was held weeks before the long-delayed Third Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, which will discuss economic reforms and officially remove ousted senior party members, Reuters notes.
The dates of the plenary have not yet been announced. Next to him, Li Shanfu and former Foreign Minister Qing Gan remain members of the Central Committee of the CCP.