CHINESE President Xi Jinping has struck a key blow in his battle against corruption with the expul-sion from the Communist Party of a former high- ranking military commander who had risen to near the apex of power.
Xu Caihou, who retired as vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission last year and from the party's decision-making Politburo in 2012, is the highest-ranking military officer to be accused of corruption in China. Mr Xu will be handed over for a court martial after being accused of taking bribes.
China's official Xinhua news agency said: "The party will never allow a hiding place for corrupt elements, the military will also never allow corrupt elements any place to hide."
Both the party and the army, the agency said, had to understand "the long-term, complicated and arduous battle against corruption, and the need for the fight against corruption to be put in a more prominent position".
It added: "Upon investigation, Xu Caihou took advantage of his office, helped others be promoted to positions and accepted bribes directly or through his family, used his position to influence others for profit and his family members accepted valuables from others."
Mr Xu has been under virtual house arrest for months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article