Top general Xu Qiliang (pic), a close ally of President Xi Jinping who was the former vice-chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, died of illness at age 75, state media reported.
Xu served two consecutive terms on the Communist Party’s highest military command body between 2012 and 2022, as Xi came to power.
Before that, he spent decades in the People’s Liberation Army air force, rising to Air Force Commander in 2007 after a stint in the PLA General Staff Department.
Xu was described as an “outstanding member of the Communist Party” and an “outstanding leader of the People’s Liberation Army” in an obituary published on Monday by state news agency Xinhua.
Born into a peasant family in eastern Shandong province, Xu joined the PLA in 1966 at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of turmoil spearheaded by Mao Zedong.
He was a strong advocate of military modernisation, helping transform the air force from a reliance on outdated equipment to domestically developed stealth fighters and amphibian assault ships.
Xu was commander of an air force unit in Fuzhou, Fujian province, while Xi was the city’s Communist Party chief in the early 1990s. It is during this period that the men were reported to have become close. — Reuters
