One of the biggest news stories coming out of Asia for the New Year was the alleged purge of senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers, most notably the former PRC Minister of Defense Li Shangfu who went missing in late August 2023 and was formally removed from his position in October. This so-called purge, which also included three senior defense industry officials, was in fact the result of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) annual announcement of the new slate of delegates for the upcoming Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body of the PRC’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC), that is held each year, usually in early March.
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