2025年1月6日,中共總書記、國家主席、中央軍委主席習近平在中共二十屆四中全會上發表重要講話。他表示,黨中央堅持「自我革命引領社會革命」,提高黨內法規制度的執行自覺,鏟除腐敗滋生的土壤和條件,解決一大批群眾所提出的「突出問題」,堅持「反腐敗鬥爭」和「從嚴治黨能力」。
習近平指出,腐敗是中國共產黨面臨的「最大威脅」,因此,反腐敗是「最徹底的自我革命」,堅持有腐必反、有貪必肅,不斷純潔幹部隊伍,維護黨的形象,鞏固紅色江山,確保黨不變質、不變色、不變味。這樣,中國就會變得強大,中華民族的復興將繼續成為積極的舉措。
反腐敗標準納入軍隊將領績效考核
作為中央軍委主席,習近平強調,當前反腐敗鬥爭形勢依然「嚴峻複雜」,腐敗存量尚未剷除,增量還在持續發生,因此反腐敗必須「堅決」。
習近平所說的從嚴治黨,就是要管好下屬,落實好自己的責任,健全績效考核制度,對不履行職責的要嚴肅追究責任。顯然,軍委會主席強調了將反腐敗標準納入軍隊指戰將領績效考核的必要。

1990年代初,已故中央軍委主席江澤民意識到軍隊辦企業問題的嚴重性。 1998年7月,他召開全軍最高指揮部會議,要求全軍嚴控和打擊走私,同時中央決定禁止全軍及其部隊從事商業活動。
退休軍官下海導致隱性腐敗
截至1998年底,2萬家軍工企業中,只有5000家將業務交給地方民間組織。一些退休和復員軍官離開解放軍去經營民間企業,但他們與軍隊的個人聯繫仍然存在,這種現象導致隱性腐敗持續存在。
2012年底習近平就任軍委會主席後,開始清理江澤民、胡錦濤時代的腐敗分子。2015年,習近平指出腐敗和反腐敗局勢依然緊張。2016年黨的十一屆三中全會上,習近平透露反腐敗鬥爭壓倒性態勢正在形,暗示軍隊腐敗問題已得到控制。據報道,2013至2016年,至少有45名解放軍高級軍官因腐敗和違反黨紀而被清洗,其中包括中央軍委副主席徐才厚和郭伯雄。兩人因為利用職務便利收受賄賂、為他人職務晉升或調整提供幫助而獲罪。
徐和郭的案件意義重大,因為他們的賄賂和腐敗指控顯示了解放軍內部集團腐敗的普遍模式。在清除徐、郭之後,習近平在2018年宣布反腐敗鬥爭取得壓倒性勝利,全面從嚴治黨取得重大成果。
然而,最近幾位軍方將領的被捕和失蹤表明,中國軍隊中反對反腐敗的聲音仍然存在。因此,習近平今年1月6日指出反腐敗仍是中國共產黨面臨的最大威脅,就是全軍同腐敗分子進行持久政治鬥爭的明證。
重視軍隊採購和審計不嚴問題
轉捩點似乎是2023年中至2024年涉及多名解放軍軍官的貪腐案件,因此,解放軍內部的反腐敗清洗將會持續下去,而且不太可能消失。
習近平領導的中央軍委高度重視軍隊採購、審計不嚴等議題。2025年1月4日,出版了一本小冊子(下稱《手冊》),概述了資金集中、收付結算、報銷以及審核的標準,並分發給軍事領導人和軍官。
《手冊》詳細介紹了包括採購在內的軍費計算、報告、報銷、審核等流程,構成了軍方廉政建設的嚴重漏洞。《手冊》列出了24類經常性經費支出項目,以確保各部隊嚴格遵守這些程序。

貫徹軍委主席負責制
2025年1月11日,中央軍委副主席何衛東在中央軍委紀委會議上表示,強調要堅持以習近平新時代中國特色社會主義思想為指導,深入推進全面從嚴治黨、全面從嚴治軍,貫徹軍委主席負責制,為打好實現建軍一百年奮鬥目標攻堅戰提供堅強保障。他重申軍事上服從中央軍委主席習近平的領導,並強調繼續持久反腐敗,這是習近平提到的「自我革命」的一部分。
綜上所述,習近平時代的中國軍隊反腐敗鬥爭進入了深化和拓展的新時期。由於中國軍隊的腐敗已成為鄧小平、江澤民、胡錦濤領導下的改革時代的遺產,習近平作為中央軍委主席,通過「自我革命永遠在路上」進行反腐敗。
伴隨「自我革命永遠在路上」的堅決,對軍事採購和支出實施更嚴格的規則和詳細規定,以進行更嚴格的審計和內部制衡,以防範源自於個人關係和集團對腐敗病毒的制度性保障,中央紀委在中央軍委內的作用和內部審計工作可能會變得愈來愈重要。因此,解放軍內部的反腐敗清洗將繼續下去,而且不太可能消失,也沒有任何證據顯示解放軍的反腐敗努力與其戰鬥力下降有關。
OPINION – The Politics of Anti-Corruption in the Chinese Military
On 6 January 2025, Xi Jinping, who is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese President, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), delivered an important speech at the fourth meeting of the 20th CPC Central Discipline Inspection Committee (CDIC). His presence and remarks were broadcast live and attended by the CDIC members and many members of the central agencies and military units, including the Xinjiang production brigade.
CMC Chairman Xi Jinping said that the CPC in 2024 insisted on its “self-revolution that led the societal revolution,” increasing the consciousness of party members to abide by the party law and regulations, eliminating “the soil and conditions of corruption,” solving the “prominent problems” raised by a large batch of masses, and persisting in the “anti-corruption struggles” and the “capability of strict party discipline.” (See the website of the Ministry of Defense of the People’s Republic of China, “Xi Jinping in the 29th CDIC meeting made important remarks stressing the need for revolutionary spirit and strict criteria to govern the party and to engage in anti-corruption persistently and comprehensively,” January 6, 2025). All the members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo attended the meeting, including Premier Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi.
Xi Jinping instilled a sense of crisis consciousness into the psyche of the CPC members by saying that “corruption constitutes the greatest threat to our Party.” As such, anti-corruption is “the most comprehensive self-revolution.” He said: “We must clean any corrupt element and continuously purify the cadre team, protect the image of the Party, consolidate the red lakes and mountains, ensure that the Party does not change its nature and colours.” In this way, China will become strong, and the Chinese renaissance will continue to be an active historical initiative.
As the CMC Chairman, Xi emphasised that at present, anti-corruption work remains “serious and complex” because the corrupt elements have not been eradicated. Therefore, anti-corruption has to be “resolute,” and “any hesitation, any soft hand or any abandonment half-heartedly would bring about a subversive mistake.” Hence, anti-corruption requires determination and faith.
Xi added that “political supervision work” has to be concretised and regularised, while CPC members have to ensure that their thinking and direction must be united and conforming to the party line. Politically, CPC members have to be under the united leadership of the Party centre, he said. In terms of action, the Party decisions have to be implemented to ensure continuous reforms and high-quality development.
As with his previous speeches, Xi Jinping stressed that Party members have to adhere to self-discipline, be practical, and arrest those few people who violate the discipline much earlier. Hence, the CMC Chairman insists on an approach to adopting permanent rectification, continuous self-revolution, and persistent anti-corruption work.
Strict Party discipline, to Xi Jinping, refers to the action of supervising subordinates well, fulfilling one’s responsibilities, improving the performance appraisal system, and holding those who do not adhere to their responsibilities in an accountable manner. Clearly, the CMC Chairman emphasised the need for integrating the anti-corruption criterion into the performance appraisal of the military officers and generals.
Li Xi, the Secretary of the CDIC, delivered a speech at the same meeting. He emphasised the importance of deepening clean governance in the CPC, promoting “anti-corruption struggles,” and entrenching the foundation of “Chinese-style modernisation.” Li Xi echoed Xi Jinping’s speech, which could be regarded as providing the gist of how the CPC should deal with anti-corruption in the Chinese military.
Xi Jinping, as Chairman of the CMC, has elevated anti-corruption to a permanent “self-revolution” and a “societal revolution” that seeks to instil a crisis consciousness among CPC and PLA leaders and members
Recently, some news reports have claimed that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been so plagued with corruption that its fighting ability could have been reduced. Nevertheless, this argument is superficial and has ignored two important issues. First, since November 2012, when Xi Jinping became the CMC Chairman, anti-corruption has become a permanent “self-revolution” of the Chinese military. Second, there is no evidence to show that anti-corruption has undermined the PLA’s capability. Conversely, in the psyche of the Chinese leaders, the more intensive the anti-corruption drive, the stronger the PLA’s capability – a principle adopted and emphasised by CMC Chairman Xi Jinping.
In the mid-1980s, China entered the rapid reform era, during which military expenditure became tense. To subsidise military expenditure, the CMC in 1985 allowed the PLA to manage businesses so that it could become more “self-subsidising” than before. Many military districts and brigades went into various business ventures, setting up hotels, aviation companies, pharmaceutical services, electronics companies, insurance organisations, telecommunication networks, and even entertainment centres. Although military expenditures could be increasingly self-funded, allowing the PLA to go into business undoubtedly created a breeding ground for corruption, including smuggling activities along the coastal regions of China. Military-civilian relations became increasingly messy, creating potential conflicts of interest between the military and ordinary citizens. Conflicts of interest also emerged rapidly within the PLA units that conducted businesses.
In the early 1990s, the late CMC Chairman Jiang Zemin realised the severity of the problems of allowing the military to operate businesses. In July 1998, he convened a meeting of the PLA high command and required the entire military force to control and combat smuggling, while simultaneously, the central leadership decided to ban the PLA and its units from doing business.
An immediate clean break of the military from its businesses was difficult. By the end of 1998, only 5,000 out of 20,000 military-related enterprises surrendered their operations to civilian organisations at the local level. Some retired and demobilised military officers left the PLA to operate civilian enterprises, but their personal connections with the military lingered – a phenomenon that led to continuous and hidden corruption. The CMC from 2008 to 2012, under the leadership of Hu Jintao, established a plan for anti-corruption in the Chinese military. However, as civilian leaders without solid military backgrounds, and unlike the late Deng Xiaoping, who was a political commissar in the PLA, both Jiang Zemin’s and Hu Jintao’s anti-corruption drives in the military naturally met silent resistance and opposition.
When Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012, he was keen to make anti-corruption a permanent “self-revolution” and “societal revolution” in China, including the PLA. Unlike Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping actually worked in the CMC Secretariat from 1979 to 1982 as a military officer. Of course, Xi’s record could not be compared with Deng Xiaoping, who was the PLA political commissar continuously from the Red Army’s Long March to the Second World War and the Civil War.
After Xi Jinping became the CMC Chairman in late 2012, he began to clean up the corrupt elements who could be regarded as the remnants of the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao era. In 2015, Xi said that the situation of corruption and anti-corruption remained tense. During the Party Plenum in 2016, Xi Jinping revealed that the anti-corruption situation became “dominant,” implying that PLA corruption was under control. From 2013 to 2016, it was reported that at least 45 high-ranking PLA officers were purged because of corruption and violations of party discipline, including CMC deputy chairs Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong. Both were found guilty of accepting bribes to assist others in the process of promotion.
The cases of Xu and Guo were significant, as their bribery and corruption charges indicated a common pattern of syndicate corruption within the PLA. After the purges of Xu and Guo, Xi Jinping in 2018 announced that anti-corruption had gained an “overwhelming victory and it can be consolidated and developed further.”
However, the most recent arrests and disappearances of several military generals have shown that opposition to anti-corruption in the Chinese military persists. As such, Xi Jinping’s remarks on 6 January that anti-corruption remains the greatest threat to the CPC are a testimony to the permanent political struggle against corrupt elements in the PLA.
The turning point appeared to be the corruption cases involving many PLA officers from mid-2023 to 2024. At least nine high-ranking PLA officers were involved in corruption scandals in 2023: Lieutenant General Zhang Zhenzhong from the Rocket Force; Major General Lu Hong of the Rocket Force; General Li Yuchao of the Rocket Force; General Zhou Yaning of the Rocket Force; Lieutenant General Ju Xinchun of the Naval Force; Lieutenant General Zhang Yulin of the Logistics Development Department; and Lieutenant General Rao Wenmin of the Logistics Development Department. Apparently, the Rocket Force had problematic procurement procedures related to an entire corruption syndicate at the top level of the PLA leadership. As a result, a purge was regarded as a necessity.
In 2024, another batch of corrupt PLA generals and officers were investigated and purged. They included Lieutenant General Li Zhizhong, Deputy Commander of the Central Theatre Command; Lieutenant General Ju Xinchun, the Naval Commander of the Southern Theatre Command; and former Defence Ministers General Li Shangfu and General Wei Fenghe. Both Li and Wei were expelled from the CPC for accepting bribes and favouring others in the processes of not only procurement but also personnel arrangements. In November 2024, the Director of the CMC Political Work Department, Miao Hua, came under investigation. Apparently, Miao failed to conduct his political work effectively among PLA colleagues and was directly or indirectly responsible for the corruption mess within the military.
Anti-corruption purges within the PLA will continue and are unlikely to fade away.
The CMC under the leadership of Xi Jinping has focused on the problems of procurement and lax auditing in the PLA. On 4 January 2025, a booklet outlining the criteria for centralising capital, receiving and offering payment, and calculating reimbursement, as well as auditing, was published and distributed to military leaders and officers (See: “Military Units Expenses Calculations, Reporting, and Auditing Structural Construction and Systematic Criteria,” People’s Liberation Daily, January 4, 2025). The booklet details the processes for calculating, reporting, reimbursing, and auditing military expenditures, including procurement, which has constituted a serious loophole in clean governance within the PLA. Twenty-four types of expenditure are listed in the booklet to ensure that every military unit strictly adheres to these procedures.
On 11 January 2025, CMC Deputy Chairman He Weidong said in an extended meeting of the CDIC under the CMC that the military must uphold the direction and teachings of “Chinese socialism in the Xi Jinping new era,” promote the process of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party and managing the military, and resolutely pursue “the CMC Chairman responsibility system.” He reiterated military obedience to the leadership of CMC Chairman Xi Jinping and emphasised the continuation of permanent anti-corruption as part of the “self-revolution” mentioned by Xi.
In conclusion, China under the Xi Jinping era has entered a new period of deepening and broadening the anti-corruption campaign within the Chinese military. As corruption in the Chinese military has become a legacy of the reform era under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping, as Chairman of the CMC, has elevated anti-corruption to a permanent “self-revolution” and a “societal revolution” that seeks to instil a crisis consciousness among CPC and PLA leaders and members. Accompanying this “permanent revolution” is the introduction of much tighter rules and detailed regulations on military procurement and expenditure for stricter auditing and internal checks and balances. The role of the CDIC within the CMC and the work of internal auditing will likely become increasingly important as institutional safeguards against the “virus” of corruption, which has stemmed from personal connections and syndicate corruption. As such, anti-corruption purges within the PLA will continue and are unlikely to fade away. Nor is there any evidence linking anti-corruption efforts in the PLA with a decline in its fighting capacity. Rather, in the psyche of China’s top leaders—especially Xi Jinping, who can be regarded as having combined civilian-military experience in his career—anti-corruption within the PLA can and will enhance the military’s capability, refine its professionalism, and make it even stronger.
原刊於澳門新聞通訊社(MNA)網站,本社獲作者授權轉載。(原文按此)