BEIJING – China appointed a former missile unit commander as its newdefence minister today, whose first guest of honour could be his Indiancounterpart Nirmala Sitharaman.
Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe, 63, a close confidant of President XiJinping, was the last commander of China’s missile unit, the SecondArtillery Corps, before it was split into two — the People’s LiberationArmy (PLA) Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force — making them apotent force.
He was appointed as the Defence Minister by the Parliament, the NationalPeople’s Congress (NPC).
Sitharaman recently announced that she would visit China next month, thefirst visit by a top Indian official since last year’s 73-day long standoffat Dokalam in Sikkim section. The visit was announced amid diplomaticefforts by both the countries to reset the relations on a positive modewith high-level visits including the expected visit of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)summit to be held in June at the Chinese city of Qingdao.
In China, the military functions under the Central Military Commission(CMC) headed by Xi.
Yesterday, the NPC appointed Xu Qiliang and Zhang Youxia, the two Generalsclose to Xi, as vice chairmen of the CMC.
Gen Wei had backed Xi’s unprecedented overhaul of the country’s 2.3-millionstrong military which has now been downsized to two million after layingoff three lakh troops. After taking over power in 2013, Xi completelyoverhauled the command structure of the PLA, the world’s largest army.
This year, China has increased its military budget to USD 175 billion,three times larger than that of India, an increase of 8.1 per cent comparedto last year.
Xi also carried out a massive anti-graft campaign in the military in whichover 50 top generals and officials besides 3,000 personnel from other ranksreported to have been punished.
“Wei was the first PLA department head to not only promise to supportPresident Xi Jinping’s unprecedented military overhaul from the verybeginning, but also to proactively meet Xi, who is also the CMC chairman,”Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported recently. Wei joined theSecond Artillery Corps in 1970 when he was just 16.
He was sent to learn rocket engineering at a missile school under theCommission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.
He went on to train as a strategic missile commander at the SecondArtillery Corps’ college in Wuhan in Central China. Wei was among the firstof a number of senior military officers to pledge their loyalty to Xi evenbefore the president announced his ambitious reform programme, an officialtold the Post.
“Wei actually provided Xi with the plan to reorganise the Second ArtilleryCorps in an innovative way, even though it wasn’t in his personalinterests,” the official added.