The Li Shangfu case showed that the job of defense minister in China can be a dangerous one. The Chinese man was only in office for a few months before he disappeared without further explanation in the summer. It wasn’t until two months later that Li was officially released; his whereabouts are still unknown to this day.
His successor, Dong Jun, who was appointed on Friday, can now hope for better luck. By becoming defense minister, the previous naval commander is taking on a position that has little decision-making power. In the future, Dong will probably appear primarily as the face of the Chinese military to other states and explain China’s position at security conferences.
The armed forces in China are not subordinate to parliament, as in Germany, but to the Communist Party. The military is led by China’s state and party leader Xi Jinping in his role as chairman of the Central Military Commission. Remarkable: Dong Jun is not yet a member of the commission, but could soon be appointed to it.
Even if Dong has little influence, his appointment solves at least one problem: Washington imposed sanctions on his predecessor Li Shangfu under Donald Trump for purchasing weapons from Russia. These made a meeting between the US and Chinese defense ministers almost impossible during Li’s term in office.
In November, Xi and US President Joe Biden agreed in a rare meeting to resume military talks between the two major powers. After former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Beijing froze the exchange in protest. In addition to Taiwan, the points of contention between the USA and China are China’s disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea, through which important shipping lanes run. The International Court of Arbitration in The Hague rejected the claims in 2016, and Beijing ignored the ruling.
Dong Jun is familiar with these conflict issues. According to state media, the Chinese man was born in Yantai in the coastal province of Shandong in 1961. This is the namesake of China’s first entirely domestically built aircraft carrier and home to China’s Northern Fleet, which operates in the Yellow Sea, which is bordered by the Korean Peninsula to the east and mainland China to the west.
President Xi calls for “rock-solid unity between army and government”
After graduating from the Naval Academy in Dalian, Dong Jun led, among other things, as deputy commander of the Southern Command of China’s navy, which operates in the South China Sea, as well as the fleet in the maritime areas around Taiwan. Dong is the first defense minister with a naval background; his predecessor Li was an aerospace engineer and, among other things, headed the weapons development department of the Central Military Commission.
This year there have been several indications of major upheaval within the military, possibly due to allegations of corruption among senior leadership. In addition to Li, several leading figures in the missile force disappeared in the summer. As with the previous defense minister, there were no explanations from the Chinese government. Recently, three senior managers of state-owned military companies are also said to have lost their positions.
According to a report by the Financial Times The number of military cadres shot could be significantly higher. This is an indication that Beijing wants to strengthen discipline and combat readiness within the military in the face of growing tensions with the USA and Western partners. President Xi Jinping calls for “rock-solid unity between the army and the government and between the army and the people.” For years he has been upgrading the military, which is expected to become a leading global armed force by 2049. This year, defense spending grew again strongly despite the weak economy. Dong Jun’s job now is to explain this zeal for rearmament abroad.