Soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army 1st Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division prepare to provide Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen with a demonstration of their capablities during a visit to the unit in China on July 12, 2011. Mullen is on a three-day trip to the country meeting with counterparts and Chinese leaders. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released)
The Chinese Military's Toughest Opponent: Corruption -- Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat
Is Xi Jinping willing to bring his anti-corruption drive to bear on the People’s Liberation Army?
South China Morning Post reported details this week on an official government raid of the home of Lt. Gen. Gu Junshan, one of the highest-ranking PLA officers to ever be investigated for graft. Gu, who used to be the deputy chief of the PLA’s General Logistics Department, reportedly had quite a collection of treasures at his home in Henan Province, including “a pure gold statue of Mao Zedong, a gold wash basin, a model boat made of gold and crates of Maotai liquor.”
For all the recent fervor in the United States over China’s military modernization programs, corruption within the ranks could be weakening these efforts behind the scenes. According to Xinhua, China’s official defense budget for 2013 was $114.3 billion, a 10.7 percent increase over 2012. Western analysts such as Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff have noted that it is incredibly difficult to tell exactly what this money is being used for. “China still does not release even basic information that would provide insight into intra-PLA spending priorities, including a budget breakdown by service, the total amount spent on weapons imports, or the procurement costs of specific weapons and platforms,” they told the National Bureau of Asian Research in 2013.
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My Comment: As one who has lived in China and who travels there regularly .... the number one problem that all of my Chinese friends and business associates in China always bring up to me is the problem of corruption. It is endemic and deeply ingrained .... and it is the number one peeve among everyone who lives there. The fact that the Chinese military has not been able to escape this scourge does not surprise me one bit.
The US has been very lucky with it's military for 240+ years. Our military has been stupid, incompetent, brilliant, lucky, under funded, over funded, short sighted, but never never to my knowledge systemically corrupt, which is a death knell to war fighting abilities.
ReplyDeleteJul 20, 2013
ReplyDeleteReport questions costs of villas and mansions for top military brass
A Pentagon report questions the high costs of villas and mansions for top generals and admirals.
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The military will pay $160,000 a year to house Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, head of U.S. Southern Command, in Casa Sur on a swanky street in Coral Gables, Fla. The home is undergoing a $402,000 renovation. (David Cloud, Los Angeles Times / July 18, 2013)
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Marine Gen. John F. Kelly works in a fortress-like headquarters near the Miami airport. Starting this fall, he will live in Casa Sur, an elegant home with a pool and gardens on one of the area's swankiest streets.
The five-bedroom residence, across the street from the famed Biltmore Golf Course, is provided rent-free to Kelly as head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean Latin America.
The cost to taxpayers? $160,000 a year, plus $402,000 for renovations and security improvements now underway.
Casa Sur is one of hundreds of high-end homes, villas and mansions where senior generals and admirals are billeted, according to a Pentagon report prepared for Congress last month but not publicly released.
Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the Air Force four-star who commands NATO, gets a 15,000-square-foot, 19th century chateau in Belgium. Lt. Gen. Steven A. Hummer, head of Marine Forces Reserve, enjoys a 19th century plantation house in New Orleans listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and their deputies inhabit historic quarters in and around Washington — all staffed with chefs, drivers, gardeners and security teams.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military-mansions-20130721,0,5484414.story
Don,
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should have ended my comment with yet. Yeah we've got a problem with perfumed princes which could easily lead to corruption system wide and deep, but I don't thin we're there yet.
I am sure there are corruption problems in the U.S. .... but I know from what I have seen in my own home country of Russia and in my visits to China (and living there for one year) that the U.S. pales in what is happening in those countries.
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