Report: China's corruption purge was due to problems with their rocket force, including missiles filled with water.

 

Chinese missiles. The WarZone.

A new report alleges that China's military purge was due to corruption in the rocket force. The WarZone. The corruption led to the firing of China's Defense Minister and many other high ranking officials in China's Rocket force. Some of the graft included filling missiles with water instead of fuel and many new missile silos having defective lids, meaning those weapons could not be used in conflict. The missiles were likely the liquid fueled DF-5 series ballistic missiles. It is possible that the water filled missiles could be due to poor maintenance, but watering down fuel is a common form of corruption worldwide. President Xi has made rooting out corruption a cornerstone of his presidency. The report says that the corruption may have affected military readiness and delayed any military action against Taiwan. 

The original report can be found on Bloomberg but it is paywalled.  

My Comment:   

There are questions if this report is even true. There are no cited sources in the Bloomberg article and that is always a red flag when it comes to news reports. Supposedly they are supporting Western intelligence agencies which is a 2nd red flag. It's also a negative story against at US competitor, which is a third red flag. 

Despite all that I think the general idea of the report is probably true. There has to be a reason why China fired and disappeared their defense minister and this would be as good as explanation as any I have heard. And Xi is focused on corruption and finding corruption in his rocket forces would be a good reason to purge a bunch of them. 

Are the specific allegations about water filled missiles and faulty missile silo lids true? It's possible. Like the article said, watering down fuel is a common corruption tactic throughout the world. And if officials are cutting corners on building new missile silos that's hardly unbelievable. 

But I also wouldn't rule out incompetence for explanations for both issues. People could just be lazy and stupid and not trying to make a buck. Never assume malice when stupidity and laziness could explain it. 

Of course each explanation would explain the purge. When you have missiles that won't fire due to being fueled with water or because the lid on the missile silo won't open, then you are more than justified in firing a bunch of people. No military can tolerate that so if the reports are true then it is no surprise that a bunch of people lost their jobs and possibly more. 

Will it effect any attack on Taiwan? Very possible. If the US is aware of this, and they are, that means they would be a lot less afraid of China's nuclear deterrent if they know that many of their ICBM's won't work. That's got to be totally unacceptable for launching a war of choice. 

I do wonder if we don't have the same problems with corruption and incompetence in our own nuclear forces. It absolutely seems like our entire government is rotten from the head on down so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some amount of graft and idiocy running in our missile programs. Indeed, given the quality of some of our weapons given to Ukraine I would not be surprised if we wouldn't face similar issues as the Chinese if a war actually came. Indeed, the only country that I would trust to not have the problem is Russia, which was probably able to discover and root out the rot when the war with Ukraine broke out...