A former vice-chairperson of China’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), headed at present by President Xi Jinping, has confessed to taking “extremely large” amounts of bribes during his tenure, state media said Tuesday.
The accused Xu Caihou, 71, was CMC vice-chairperson between 2004 and 2012 during former President Hu Jintao’s time as China’s CMC head. Xu, according to the official news agency, Xinhua, was under investigation since March this year and was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) in June.
The seven-month investigation, according to military prosecutors, revealed that Xu took “advantage of his position to assist the promotions of others, accepting huge bribes personally and through his family, and to have sought profits for others in exchange for bribes. The amount of bribe was ‘extremely large’”, the statement said.
Xu is the highest ranking military officer in recent years to be indicted for corruption. Till now, among civilians, Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee — the elite team of top CPC leaders — of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, was put under investigation.