Chinese General Promoted to Lead Missile Corps

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/world/asia/wei-fenghe-promoted-to-lead-missile-corps.html

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BEIJING — A former deputy chief of the army’s general staff, Lt. Gen. Wei Fenghe, has been promoted to commander of the Second Artillery Corps, home of the strategic missile force, the Defense Ministry said Monday.

The new position as head of one of China’s most important military units  is part of a major turnover in China’s armed forces and almost certainly assures General Wei a seat on the Central Military Commission, the military’s top decision-making body, currently headed by President Hu Jintao.

The new membership of the commission, which will oversee the rapid modernization of China’s military, is expected to be announced after the 18th Party Congress next month.

General Wei’s promotion had been anticipated. He served as chief of staff of the corps between 2006 and 2010, and was involved in intercontinental ballistic missile testing in 1989, said Mark Stokes, the executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, in Washington, a nongovernmental organization that studies military issues in Asia.

Bo Zhiyue, a research fellow at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said: “He is a professional soldier who has spent his whole career in the missile troops. He is relatively young and will work for another decade. He will add to the professionalization of the Second Artillery Corps."