Xu Caihou, former general accused of corruption dies of cancer. Doubts over date of death
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Coinciding with the end of the National People's Congress yesterday, at midnight last night news broke that former General Xu Caihou had died of cancer. Xu, 71, was vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, second only to Xi Jinping, and a key member of the Politburo. But last October, was accused of receiving huge bribes in exchange for promotions. He had been degraded as a result, although the precise charges were never published.
Xu Caihou, came
to power during the Jiang Zemin era and was his close ally. He is one of the high ranking victims of Xi
Jinping's anti-corruption campaign which was launched in 2012. So
far at least 30 senior army officers have been accused of "horrible"
corruption.
Some army figures doubt that Xu Caihou died yesterday. In all likelihood he
died several days ago, perhaps in early March, but the news was kept secret so
as not to overshadow the National Congress, which began on March 5. Xu was
terminally ill with cancer for at least one year. Already on March 7 news began
to circulate online that a high ranking personality had died of cancer.
Another reason
the silence over Xu's death, could be to prevent aftershocks in the Congress, where
the Party is being subject to a war between groups linked to Jiang Zemin and
those related to Xi Jinping.
According to observers, now that Xu has died, the new target of the
anti-corruption campaign will be Gen. Guo Boxiong, another Jiang Zemin ally.
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17/03/2018 11:36
