BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party has expelled a former top general who killed himself during a corruption investigation and has indicted another on graft charges in President Xi Jinping’s continuing crackdown on military malfeasance.
Official media outlets reported that Zhang Yang killed himself at home last November, after which they denounced his death as a “despicable” act to escape punishment.
Tuesday’s announcement renewed those accusations and said Zhang had been kicked out of the party and posthumously stripped of his rank. It said assets related to his crimes would be seized.
Zhang formerly headed the Political Work Department under the government and party commissions that oversee the armed forces, the world’s largest standing military.
The other general, Fang Fenghui, also was expelled and stripped of his rank, state media reported. He faces a court-martial on corruption allegations.
Fang, formerly chief of the military’s joint staff department, dropped out of public view last year, shortly after an August 2017 meeting with the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford.