Interesting story - and somewhat confirms something I heard from a student of mine earlier today in Beijing. He loves to talk about domestic Chinese politics and though he’s never explicitly said it, he seems to have little patience with Xi Jinping and his ruling clique.

China replaced two leaders of an elite unit managing its nuclear arsenal, triggering speculation of a purge.

General Li Yuchao who headed the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Rocket Force unit and his deputy had “disappeared” for months.

Former deputy navy chief Wang Houbin and party central committee member Xu Xisheng were named as replacements.

This is the biggest unplanned shake-up in Beijing’s military leadership in almost a decade.

“The latest purge is significant… [as] China is undertaking one of the most profound changes in nuclear strategy in decades,” said Lyle Morris, a foreign policy and national security fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

bbc.com

So, the rumor on the Chinese grapevine is that apparently, General Li Yuchao, who was in charge of missile procurement, bought foreign chips instead of homegrown. Seems the general and his deputy set up a few shell companies to fake purchases of domestically made chips and then skimmed a little profit off the top.

So now, China’s Central Military Commission has been freaking out behind the scenes for the last several weeks over the possibility, however remote, that the United States has all the data to all those missiles these two corrupt chowderheads were in charge of.

And this is a newly formed military unit that’s supposed to be an elite unit. 😄