Chinese President Xi Jinping has overhauled the military hierarchy in charge of China's nuclear arsenal in response to claims of a thorough corruption investigation into the rocket force. Jinping replaced the two most-senior leaders in the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, a report in state media showed, bringing in new blood from China’s air force and navy — a highly unusual step that suggests a desire for wholesale change in the unit’s upper echelons.

Wang Houbin, the navy’s former deputy commander, will become the new head of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, while Xu Xisheng will move from Southern Theatre Command to become its new political commissar, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Their appointments were made official at the same time that Wang and Xu were elevated to the rank of full general during a ceremony on Monday. Neither general had any prior military experience.

Li Yuchao, a former commander of the force, as well as his current and former lieutenants Zhang Zhenzhong and Liu Guangbin, are all under investigation by the Central Military Commission's anti-corruption section.

There have been no public announcements about any investigation into the trio, but they are believed to have been taken away by investigators.

It is extremely rare for President Xi Jinping, the head of the CMC, to replace a fighting forces commander and its political chief at the same time.

However, in December 2014, months after it was revealed that former security leader Zhou Yongkang had been charged with corruption, a similar change was made to the People's Armed Police.

Zhou, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, is the most senior official to be purged under Xi’s sweeping crackdown on corruption. He was jailed for life in 2015.

During an address at an air force base in Sichuan last week, Xi urged the military to intensify its efforts to combat corruption in addition to its modernization drive ahead of the PLA's anniversary on Tuesday.

“We need to push forward the party’s strict discipline and anti-corruption efforts to a deeper level,” Xi said, according to CCTV.

Rocket Force is the centrepiece of the country’s nuclear deterrence strategy and Beijing’s efforts to ramp up military pressure on Taiwan.

The decision to move Wang from the PLA Navy to the Rocket Force is unprecedented, but defence analysts said it reflected the PLA’s confidence in its hybrid warfare abilities.

In an effort to ensure that all combat wings can function together, the PLA has recently been trying to upgrade its air, ground, and sea-based nuclear systems, or the so-called nuclear triad.

“It’s not a problem for a naval commander to head the rocket force, because the PLA navy also needs to take care of strategic nuclear weapons,” said Zhou Chenming, a researcher with the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank.

“In today’s modern warfare, all senior commanders in the navy, ground and air force need to be trained [in hybrid warfare],” said Ni Lexiong, a military analyst at the Department of Political Science at Shanghai University of Political and Law.

Image source: Weibo