(TibetanReview.net, Jun25’26) –China’s top military brass, ranking from Major Generals upward, have just completed a 10-week schooling to become Xi Jinping complaint in their ideological outlook and loyalty. The unprecedented ideology training camp – studying President Xi Jinping’s speeches, reading corrupt cadres’ confessions and marching in formation – took place as the anti-corruption drive in the military deepened, reported the scmp.com Jun 25, citing People’s Liberation Army Daily, the Chinese military’s official newspaper, Jun 24.
The report said Xi personally decided to launch the exercise, which began on April 8, stressing in his opening ceremony speech, “leading officers, especially senior cadres, must take the lead in … building an atmosphere where people speak the truth, offer advice candidly and fight against wrongdoings.”
The training involved hundreds of officers across various People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units and departments, including generals, lieutenant generals and major generals.
The report cited the detailed PLA Daily article on the training as as saying the participants’ days began with morning exercises to practise basic military marching formations, chant their oaths to the Communist Party and sing about PLA discipline.
The meticulously designed training course was stated to offer over 40 theoretical lectures and more than 10 focused reading sessions on key texts, followed by group discussions. The texts were stated to include the military’s most important discipline regulations, Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military and Xi’s speech at the training camp’s opening ceremony.
During the session, senior officials studied, ate and rested together. They were often seen discussing in class, in the cafeteria, in the dormitories, sometimes late into the night, the PLA Daily article was cited as saying.
Apart from the texts, the top military officials were stated to have been presented with case studies on corrupt individuals, and were divided into groups focusing on military operations, political work, logistics, equipment, technology and national defence mobilisation.
They reviewed written confessions of officials, compiled a list of corruption risks and developed countermeasures, the article was stated as saying.
Just before the course concluded, on Jun 12, six role models were stated to have been invited to give speeches, with Wei Changjin, a war hero who fought in a border conflict with Vietnam in 1985, being among them.
The article was stated to stress that, in the party’s history, whenever the revolution reached a turning point, “it was invariably the senior officers who had to undergo ideological remoulding”.
Earlier, during the “two sessions” in March, the annual meeting of China’s top legislature and political advisory body, Xi was stated to have stressed, “The armed forces wield the gun. There must never be room in the military for those half-hearted towards the party, nor any sanctuary for the corrupt.”