Xu Qiliang, former top Chinese general close to Xi, dies in Beijing

Xu Qiliang, a erstwhile aerial unit wide who was reportedly adjacent to Chinese person Xi Jinping, has died astatine property 75, according to the Defense MInistry

BEIJING -- Xu Qiliang, a erstwhile aerial unit wide who was reportedly adjacent to Chinese person Xi Jinping, has died astatine property 75, according to the Defense MInistry.

Xu had been a vice commissioner of the assemblage that overseas the People’s Liberation Army, the subject subdivision of China’s ruling Communist Party, during Xi’s archetypal fewer years successful government.

China’s eventual person was astatine the clip incorporating the service and navy into enactment bodies agelong dominated by the onshore forces.

Xu was an “excellent Communist Party of China member, a time-tested and loyal communist soldier, a proletarian subject strategist, and an outstanding person of the People’s Liberation Army,” said a connection issued by the ministry.

Xu joined the PLA successful 1966 conscionable arsenic China was plunged into the convulsive decade-long Cultural Revolution nether Communist China’s laminitis Mao Zedong.

After climbing the ranks, Xu wielded sizeable power arsenic a vice president of the Central Military Commission without, it appears, falling afoul of China's enactment anti-corruption forces, who brought down respective different precocious ranking retired and serving subject leaders, including 2 erstwhile defence ministers. China has offered nary accusation connected the concern involving the pair, stirring rumors of a large shakeup successful the ranks concerning corruption oregon spying for the U.S..

China has not fought a large run since the 1950-53 Korean War, truthful Xu built his vocation mostly connected his adherence to the enactment enactment and fealty to the person of the time, who similar Xi now, serves arsenic president of the Central Military Commission.

In a February 2018 report, the authoritative Xinhua News Agency quoted Xu arsenic calling connected the Chinese service to “thoroughly survey and instrumentality the tone of the 19th enactment National Congress and President Xi Jinping’s strategy for strengthening the military.”

Xu besides helped oversee the PLA's translation into a modern warring force, eliminating its Cold War-era jets for stealth fighters and atomic bombers.

Xu besides met with overseas delegations, including then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis successful 2018, with whom helium discussed “the value of substantive military-to-military contacts to trim hazard and strategical uncertainty.” Relations betwixt the militaries person since nose-dived, on with relations successful general.

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