Writing in the Diplomat on March 7, 2015, Shannon Tiezzi reported that the South China Morning Post has suggested that Major General Huang Xing, one of the 14 officers listed as being investigated for corruption, stands accused not only of fraud, but of leaking state secrets and assisting Kokang rebels in Myanmar back in 2009.
Arthur Ding Shu-fan, a PLA researcher at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan, told SCMP that seeing Huang Xing’s name on the list was a surprise: “As a military scholar, I don’t think he would be implicated in corruption because he doesn’t have many opportunities to take bribes.”
Quoting sources SCMP said that Huang Xing was charged not because of rampant corruption but because he made the “political mistake” of supporting Kokang rebels in their fight against Myanmar government troops. The sources who are both military officials, as well as a self-described friend of Huang Xing’s, told SCMP they suspected the fraud charges were merely a convenient pretext for arresting Huang. His support for the Myanmar rebels “embarrassed” top leaders, one retired Senior Colonel told SCMP, so “they picked up another convenient charge to punish him with.”
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