Last Thursday, 27 June, the Politburo of the Communist Party of China presented two press releases, very similar but with their nuances and nuances, following the plenary session held each month by the Communist Party of China. Its content, however, was unusual: two former defence ministers, Wei Fenghe (2018-2023) and Li Shangfu (2023), were expelled from the Party and the Army for serious crimes.

The fact is so unusual that in order to find something similar, we should go back to 1971, when Lin Biao wanted to give a coup d'état of the same office and failed. Or 1959, when Peng Dehuai was shot down from the same office for disagreement with Mao. Thus, a history of a certain age.

However, press releases attributed to the dismissed motives that were unrelated to them. It can be admitted that these causes would be framed within the concept of “corruption” to which the few media outlets that have taken into account the news in the West have welcomed. But I would say that the core of the accusations are not reflected in that word.

In fact, the accusation would say that there are economic issues, but they are not the most basic. At least, the disabled are less reproached for personal enrichment than for other crimes: “Loss of faith and loyalty in the party”; “betrayal of the original mission and renunciation of the spirits and principles of the Party”; “fraud against the trust of the Party and the Central Military Board”.

How? What? The notes, of course, don't clarify it. But they claim that the error is “more serious than serious, its impact is worse, and the damage is especially great” and that both have been strongly affected “by the cause of the party, national defense and military construction, as well as by the image of the top leaders”.

Last week, hundreds of “military exercises” organized by Xi Jinping and the Central Military Commission in the historic revolutionary “shrine” of Yan’an (at least five hundred), received more information, surely, directly or indirectly, from the acquaintances and friends of some (and of the lower level members that can be found in the same situation).

Seeing that those who tried to sow more or less picturesque hypotheses when Li Shangfu disappeared from public activity last September cannot anticipate that we no longer have rays of light, we will have to follow the same idea we already had: Before being Defence Minister, Wei and Li, who have played the crucial role in supplying and managing the missile army, perhaps scammed the real virtues of one of them to the upper power... Even the takeover of supreme power.

If so, it is something that we will never be told clearly.