Is China’s Military Actually Corrupt?

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Starting in July of 2023 a sweeping campaign targeted Chinese generals, particularly within the PLA Rocket Force in what amounted to a purge. This probably wouldnt have been such a big deal if it a couple of infantry generals but we’re talking about one of the most important parts of the PLA that oversees their tactical and nuclear missiles. This branch has seen some of the biggest increases in funding and modernization in recent years.

Written by: Chris Cappy and Tony

Edited by: Savvy Studios

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Perun China Corruption video

Sandboxx China Corruption

It’s job is considered one of the most important to Chinese military strategy from their perspective it helps to deter US warships in the south china sea. It’s hard for me to impress upon you how key they really are to China’s future plans, the Rocket Force and its silos are located throughout the entire country, not just one theater command. And we’ll see with great purge come great consequences because the firings have temporarily weakened the PLA. But Unlike the purge in 2015, which was believed to have aimed at eliminating political opponents, the current purge in 2023 is thought to be primarily focused on combating corruption.

Where are we inferring this from? Partly because On January 6th, Bloomberg published a report stating that anonymous US assessments claimed the missiles of the Rocket Force were filled with water instead of fuel. Additionally, the report mentioned the presence of malfunctioning missile silo lids in western China, which could potentially hinder effective missile launches. However, from a technical standpoint, it is highly improbable for a missile to be filled with water. It is important to note that only one type of missile in the PLARF inventory, the DF-5, is liquid-fueled. Normally, liquid fuel is loaded into the missile shortly before launch, making it unlikely that water would be present inside the missile itself. It is plausible that water was found in the fuel tank designated for the DF-5 missile, as some officers might have stolen the fuel for illicit purposes.

Furthermore experts on China have since called into question whether this might come down to a mistranslation between English and Chinese. There are phrases or idioms in China whose meaning can easily be mistranslated. In this case there is a theory that the term for “water down” or it might have been an idiom for “inflating or padding” which was misinterpreted to mean the missiles were literally filled with water. It's tough to get confirmation since the source of this intelligence was anonymous. If you want to dive deeper into this I strongly recommend Perun’s outstanding video on Chinese corruption and the channel Sandbox also did great coverage of the topic.

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