The news segment, aired Wednesday night on China’s state broadcaster, features a tree-planting event in the outskirts of the capital Beijing – an annual springtime tradition for the country’s military leadership spanning more than four decades. But Gen. He Weidong, the second-highest-ranking uniformed officer in the People’s Liberation Army, was nowhere to be seen. Nor was he named as a participant in a report by the official state news agency.
Gen. He’s absence from the high-profile event has fueled ongoing speculation that the second-ranking vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) may have become the latest – and most senior – casualty in leader Xi Jinping’s purge of the military’s top ranks.
