China on Friday appointed a naval commander with expertise within the South China Sea as its minister of protection, filling a monthslong emptiness created by the unexplained disappearance of the earlier minister, who appeared to have fallen in an investigation into doable corruption or different misdeeds.
The appointment of the commander, Adm. Dong Jun, as protection minister was finalized by China’s Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, after formal approval by lawmakers, the Xinhua information company reported. Speculation unfold earlier within the week that Admiral Dong could be named to that submit after one other admiral took his place as head of the Chinese navy.
The promotion of Admiral Dong could calm the uncertainty that has festered across the excessive ranks of the Chinese navy after the disappearance and elimination of the earlier protection minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, in addition to the highest two commanders of the Rocket Force, which controls China’s nuclear missiles.
General Li had not been seen in public for about two months earlier than he was formally eliminated as minister in late October. The Chinese authorities nonetheless has not given a proof for his elimination, however many specialists imagine he was most likely entangled in an inquiry into taking bribes or different misconduct that additionally took down the Rocket Force commanders.
In China’s navy hierarchy, which is managed by the Communist Party, protection minister isn’t some of the highly effective posts. Instead, the minister serves because the People’s Liberation Army’s chief international liaison officer, assembly visiting navy delegations and giving China’s views at boards such because the annual Shangri-La Dialogue protection discussion board in Singapore.
Admiral Dong, who’s in his early 60s, isn’t a member of the Central Military Commission, the occasion council overseen by Mr. Xi that controls the People’s Liberation Army. But a later occasion leaders’ assembly could promote him onto that fee.
“The minister of defense in the Chinese government system is not a decision maker or commander of forces or resources,” stated Drew Thompson, a visiting senior analysis fellow on the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy on the National University of Singapore who previously served as a Pentagon official coping with the Chinese navy.
“That makes the defense minister a poor interlocutor for his U.S. counterpart,” Mr. Thompson stated. “But the defense minister is a primary channel for engaging with the Central Military Commission, led by Xi Jinping, which is where decisions get made.”
One of Admiral Dong’s most essential and tough duties could also be coping with talks with the U.S. navy. Beijing and Washington are locked in tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and different points, and the Pentagon has accused People’s Liberation Army planes of recklessly buzzing U.S. planes that fly in worldwide skies off China.
At a summit in November, Mr. Xi and President Biden agreed to restart dialogue between their two militaries, which Beijing suspended final yr to protest a go to by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker on the time, to Taiwan, the democratically ruled island that China claims as its territory. The two sides held navy talks earlier this month. China has insisted that the U.S. secretary of protection speak with its protection minister, however the Pentagon would really like China to be represented by a extra senior commander.
Admiral Dong could declare some expertise in some of the unstable points for China’s navy. He was beforehand a deputy commander in China’s southern command, which covers the South China Sea, the place Beijing is locked in long-running territorial disputes with Southeast Asian international locations that additionally declare islands and territorial waters there. Admiral Dong is China’s first protection minister to emerge from a naval background.
But Mr. Thompson stated that Admiral Dong appeared to have risen as extra a bureaucratic overseer than a frontline officer.
“That has upsides and downsides, because it means he knows how to work his system,” Mr. Thompson stated, “but he is more of a politician than a soldier.”
