Change of leadership in the PLAAF

Sounds like politics…PLAAF may be a hotbed of reformists within the PLA. This could be a way of tightening the strings on them… (from Kanwa)

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From Kanwa, Kanwa News June 10, 2002 Air Marshal Qiao Qingchen, the political commissar of the Chinese Air Force, recently replaced Air Chief Marshal Liu Shunyao as the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Air Force. Air Chief Marshal Liu Shunrao was born in 1939 and has not yet reached to the age of retirement.

The pro-China media in Hong Kong claimed that the main reason for Liu to be removed off the position was Liu had contracted cancer. Other reports said the change had to do with the frequent accidents in the Air Force’s recent training. Kanwa has been confirmed that there was at least one SU27 fighter crashed in the year 2001 due to unknown problems.

Putting aside Liu’s removal from the post, it is still worth noticing that the position of the Air Force commander-in-chief is now replaced by the political commissar. It is rather abnormal to put the political commissar on the position of commander-in-chief, as Qiao and Liu have the same age. Qiao has been engaging in political affairs of the Chinese Air Force for a long time. Under the circumstance in which the air force combat units are becoming highly specialized in specific technologies, this personnel change in a certain degree reflects some of the new trends of the Chinese Air Force in reinforcing political work. In contrast, Liu has been the front-line commander for a long time.

Reliable sources from the Chinese military claim that at the eve of the 16th Convention of the Chinese Communist Party, there are huge ideological fluctuations inside the forces. The new generation of knowledgeable commanders and officers have been influenced by the concept of “nationalized military forces”. These people have been advocating the necessity of building up the national military forces. This sect of military officers stress the importance of constructing democracy at the grass-root combat units, aiming at implementing the “three major democratic principles” and establishing a full-fledged Grand Convention of the Servicemen and the mechanism of military council at all company levels. They also try to deny the leadership of the Communist Part in the military and to play down the role of political commissars. Recently on different occasions, Zhang Wannian, Vice-chairman of the Military Commission of the CCP, openly criticized the concept of “nationalizing the military force”. As a professional troop in which technologies prevail, the Chinese Air Force has attracted a large number of highly knowledgeable professionals who will very likely become the front-runners in the campaign of nationalizing the military forces. As a consequence, having the political commissar directly controlling the air force obviously aims at strengthening the ideological education.

On the other hand, the implementation of the “Theory of Three Representations” in the military forces has led to the resistance and indifference of the conservative sect of the political workers in the forces to the theory. This group of officers believe that the theory advocates the notion of making the Party of all people’s(Quan Ming Dang) and tries to reconcile the conflicts in the current Chinese society, which would lead to the diminishing the Communist Party’s role of “vanguards” in the Chinese society. The theory naturally creates an opening for the ideological trend of “nationalizing the military forces”. Kanwa