GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
20 DECEMBER 2025. CHINA POST #605
CHINA AND THE FOREIGN MEDIA
——————————–
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER + PRESIDENT XI JINPING
—————————–
- WHAT IS THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?
The Military-Industrial Complex (M-I-C) is a term describing the close, interdependent relationship between a nation’s military and defense industries on the one hand, and its political leaders on the other hand. The U.S. has an M-I-C, so too does China and it is the reason for the focus by Xi Jinping on Corruption within China’s armed forces.
Some who hold positive views about China do not believe that Corruption can exist in China, They are naïve. It can exist and it does exist. China has a Corruption problem. It is the reason for the removal from prominent positions of leading members of the Party hierarchy and the armed forces.
- THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE M-I-C
The M-I-C creates a powerful network influencing public policy towards increased military spending and interventions for mutual profit and power.
- EISENHOWER AND THE M-I-C.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the M-I-C in 1961. He noted its potential for “unwarranted influence”. In a speech of less than 10 minutes, on January 17, 1961, President Eisenhower delivered his political farewell to the American people on national television from the Oval Office of the White House. Those who expected the military leader and hero of World War II to depart his Presidency with a nostalgic, “old soldier” speech like Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s, were surprised at his strong warnings about the dangers of the “Military-Industrial Complex.”
As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defence spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War’s arms race. Nonetheless, the American military services and the defence industry had expanded a great deal in the 1950s. Eisenhower thought this growth was needed to counter the Soviet Union, but it confounded him. Though he did not say so explicitly, his standing as a military leader helped to give him the credibility to stand up to the pressures of this new, powerful interest group. He eventually described it as a necessary evil. The retiring President Eisenhower said;-
“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
The key words; – “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the Military-Industrial Complex”. This is a problem in the U.S. It is also a problem in China.
- THE ARRIVAL OF THE M-I-C
The end of Eisenhower’s term as President not only marked the end of the 1950s, but also the end of an era in government. A new, younger generation was rising to national power that would set a more youthful, vigorous course. His farewell address was a warning to his successors of one of the many things they would have to be wary of in the coming years.
- THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE M-I-C
The key elements of the U.S. M-I-C (Military Industrial Complex) are the following;-
- 5.1. The Defence Companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc., that design and build weapons and military technology. They are large companies who depend on the U.S. Government for orders to keep their many factories productively active. China has Defence Companies – some nationalised and some free enterprise. Regardless, China has a strong military sector. It employs the smartest technical brains and a highly trained work force. The sector is spread across China and exists in many different provinces and autonomous regions.
- 5.2. The Military are the Armed Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) that procure and use these goods. The Military fight wars and defend national security. Up to date weapons are essential for the Military to function within the State – the U.S. State and the PRC State. The U.S is engaged in many wars across the globe – news reports (20 December 2025) refer to U.S. activity in Sahara. By comparison, China’s military is quite inactive without one soldier, sailor or pilot operating outside China. But China has for many years assessed U.S. military policy as focused on China. Hence, China is in a permanent state of high military preparedness.
- WHAT IS CORRUPTION?
It includes bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. The list is long and the practice is widespread – in the West and also in China where Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive has focused repeatedly on the Chinese Military.
- WAS EISENHOWER RIGHT TO WARN OF THE GROWTH IN THE U.S. OF THE M-I-C?
When Eisenhower retired in January 1961 there were 750 retired senior military officers on the payroll of the one hundred largest defence contractors in the U.S. By the early 1970’s the total had risen to nearly 3,000. Lockheed, alone, employed 200 and won the largest total of military contracts. Andrew Alexander (a noted right wing anti-communist UK journalist writes in “America – the Imperialism of Ignorance – Key figures could be bought by steering Pentagon spending to their Districts. The urge to see such employers, or indeed military establishments, established and retained locally became a driving force among Congressmen of both parties.
Mendel Rivers was a Congressman for the South Carolina District. He was also Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. His District included an air force base, an army depot, a naval shipyard, a marine air station, a recruit training centre, two navy hospitals, a naval station, a ballistic missile submarine training centre, a Polaris missile factory, an Avco corporation plant, a Lockheed plant, and a General Electric plant”.
Think China and wonder about the pressures – and goodies – that are offered to key members of the China Ministry of Defence as they reflect on where to locate their new military plants and the identity of the companies selected as contract parties for military equipment.
- CHINA AND CORRUPTION
But isn’t China a Socialist Country? Hasn’t the coming to power of a Communist Party dedicated to serving the interest of the people meant that corruption, if it exists, will be small and non-pervasive?
Such thinking is misplaced. The fundamental challenge to developing a new society in China comes – not from Trump and the U.S. – but from within – from the Billionaires and the Military. Xi knows that without intense focus on the issue of corruption in China, it will thrive and flourish. To his credit he has taken on the challenge of defeating corruption head-on without fear or favour. Heads have rolled. Heads will continue to roll.
China may be a Socialist State dedicated to replacing the ethics of Capitalism with the ethics of Socialism but the battle for replacement of bad thinking with good thinking is long term and spread over generations and not just decades.
- WHY MUST CHINA DEFEAT CORRUPTION?
Xi answered the question in one of his first speeches upon taking power in 2012. He warned that the People would cast aside the Party if they perceived the Party to be self-serving – to be looking after itself; to putting its individual and collective interests about those of the people of China. The Tiananmin Riots of May/June 1989 were due more to corruption in the Party and less to a demand for greater democracy and political freedoms. Deng Hsiaoping’s Reform Policy had led to some Party members benefitting from positions of power. They were lining their pockets; looking after their families; building citadels of power; driving big cars and indulging in unnecessary entertaining.
The Party has to remain modest, hard-working and committed. If Party members begin to enjoy power and put the interests of their group – be it their family or their friends or their work colleagues from their home Province – above the interests of the people at large, then the Socialist experiment in China will fail – as it did in the USSR.
China appears set on the path to the construction of durable Socialism but the Jury is still Out. The Battle is not yet won and China needs to be resilient, alert and totally focused on exposing and eliminating Corruption as an when it appears. Vigilance is the Key.
- CHINA AND THE BILLIONAIRES
With the Billionaires, the challenge was from their biggest names who wanted to add political power to economic wealth. Jack Ma went too far. He challenged the leading role of the Party. He was slapped down, put in his place and given a prolonged leave of absence following the Party decision to halt his big company flotation in Hong Kong. It was a significant moment in time and a warning to other Billionaires not to try and emulate the Oligarchs of the old USSR. The Oligarchs were successful and Gorbachev’s Communist Party died. In China the Billionaires would fail because the Communist Party stood firm and did not buckle. There is a role in China for Billionaires but in the economy and not in the political structure.
- CHINA AND THE MILITARY
The second significant challenge comes from the Military who are the focus of sustained attack by Xi Jinping.
The military – and the armament companies that make the weapons – employ lobbyists to influence decision makers within the Government lawmakers. The military buys weapons and services from the contractors. Leading decision makers within the military come under pressure from people within their Province or City “to go native” and award big contracts to their own local areas.
Nepotism can play a role with family links being used to enhance business interests; cronyism, too, comes into play with friends “calling in favours” from colleagues in high places. Peddling influence, graft and patronage is quite familiar territory. To an extent it is natural behaviour – natural to a society based on the profit motive and not the social motive. It puts the interests of the individual first and the interests of the people second.
China is a society in transition and part of the motive of its people is to pursue the lofty goals of a socialist society and part is to pursue their own individual well-being. This conflict between the individual and the collective, between the selfless and the selfish, is the epoch defining struggle of the present era in China. If China gets it right then it will remain on the path to building a modern socialist state. If China gets it wrong it will slip back onto the path to building a modern capitalist state. Time will tell.
- HIGH RANKING PARTY LEADERS TAKE A FALL
The fourth plenum of the Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee on 20-23 October 2025 formally stripped nine former high-ranking military officers and five others of their party membership on grounds of corruption. The military figures were also expelled from the People’s Liberation Army.
Now, since late November, Ma Xingrui, a member of the party’s powerful Politburo, has missed two high-profile meetings in a row, sparking speculation that he may be under investigation. Ma was absent from a Politburo group study session on Nov. 28 and then from the Central Economic Work Conference. As a Politburo member, he was supposed to attend both meetings.
Ma has been a rising star in the Party. The 66-year-old has had a stellar career spanning academic, business and political circles. He used to be an aerospace engineer and has a doctorate in the field. Later, he started his business career in a military-related industry, quickly rising through the ranks.
During his time as general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology, a major state-owned company with strong links to the military, Ma was chosen as one of 10 winners of the CCTV China Economic Person of the Year. In 2017, Ma became governor of Guangdong, the province’s No. 2 post. In 2021, he became party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. While retaining the top post in Xinjiang, Ma was made a Politburo member at the party’s 20th national congress in October 2022.
It is quite unusual for an official of Ma’s stature to miss two key meetings in a row. Ma is apparently the second Politburo member to be caught in a political bind this year. Politburo member He Weidong, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which supervises the PLA, has been expelled from the party and PLA
- CONCLUSION
The Military Industrial Complex is a fact of life in the U.S. It is also a fact of life in China. Left alone, China’s M-I-C would flourish and grow. China’s future requires that the leading members of China’s M-I-C are subject to scrutiny, review and investigation. They cannot be allowed to promote corruption and go unchallenged. The Party needs to be alert and vigilant. It needs to check bank accounts; unmask favours and favouritism; call to account Party members who succumb to the enticing seductive appeal of “goodies”and be prepared to take decisive action and remove the corrupted party members from power. The leadership has to be prepared to come down hard on the leading perpetrators and, if found guilty, they need to face shame, ridicule, and imprisonment. China has seriously reduced the use of capital punishment but it remains the case that serious cases of corruption involving substantial sums of money are dealt with by execution. The issue is that important.
GRAHAM PERRY
————————————
CHINA AND JACK PERRY – PART 28
PART 27 CONCLUDED AS FOLLOWS;-
“He also had a memorable visit to Harvard University in Massachussets. The Dean of Graduate Students phoned Jack in New York. He had been recommended to contact Jack by Bob Roosa. Could Jack visit Harvard? Yes – was Jack’s immediate response. Without an academic degree of any description and proud to be a self-made man, Jack’s ego was firmed up by the Harvard invitation. On arrival he was shown into an ante-room where he met the Dean who explained that, at short notice and in response to requests from the Graduate Faculty a seminar had been arranged at which three people would speak about China. Jack was one and the other two were former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Reischauer and former Senator Symington who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Neither had ever visited China but both had gleaned a limited knowledge of China from their respective roles. Having made the introductions – and still in the ante-room – the Dean turned to Jack and said “Mr Perry, I am very pleased to meet you. Everything has been done in a rush and I am afraid that I do not have any briefing information from my office. How would you like me to introduce you” .
Jack replied – “Just tell the audience that I am a Jew from Latvia”
What did Jack mean? What message was he passing to the Harvard Graduate Faculty? How could being Jewish have played any role in his first visit to China in 1953 and his third visit to the U.S. in 1971?
Quite simply – being Jewish had created within Jack a determination to succeed. The trigger was a blend of his acute understanding of the historical plight of the Jewish People from biblical times to the present day, and the horrors of the Holocaust which led 6 milion Jews to the gas chambers. He was also aware that whilst the Nazi alliance perpetrated its efforts to remove Jews from the face of the earth, the Anti-Nazi countries had turned a blind eye. They went missing. No one stood up for the victims in the Concentrations Camps. In 1942 the UK House of Commons passed a motion of sympathy for the death of 1 million Jews. They adjourned a sitting of the Commons. The powers-that-be knew of the plight of the Jews but resisted pressure to intervene. Such disdain left its mark. The contempt is not forgotten. It is part of the Jewish Psyche.
But this is only part of the explanation of Jack’s response to the question from Dean of Students at Harvard University. There were many Jewish victims of prejudice who did not embrace any moves in the early 1950s towards the USSR or China. There is more.
The narrative focuses on the year 1933 when Hitler came to power in Germany and Oswald Moseley came to the East End of London. The Nazi stormtroopers took control of the streets of Berlin – and other German cities – at the same time as Moseley’s Blackshirts, jackbooted their way through the streets of the East End of London perpetrating violence against Jews in particular.
A sizeable number of Jews wanted to fight back. They wanted to confront and challenge the Blackshirts in Mare Street, Kingsland High Road and Ridley Road Market. The Jewish Establishment urged restraint – “This will pass. Stay low key. Don’t fight back”. The Chief Rabbi and the Board of Deputies were increasingly disregarded as Jews in numbers decided to vote with their feet and with their fists. The leadership was provided not by the Labour or Liberal Parties but by the Communist Party of Great Britain – the CPGB. Many Jews joined the Party – not because they were Communists although the hardship and unemployment in the 1930’s compelled people – Jews and non-Jews – to look to Socialism and the USSR as an alternative to the seemingly flawed and collapsing Capitalist system. The momentum to identify with the CPGB influenced Jews because the Party provided theory and action. They explained the link between the Jarrow Marchers and action on the streets of the East End to deal head on with mass unemployment and the rise of the UK Fascist movement.
The Party had its own inspirational leaders including Palme Dutt, Harry Pollit and Phil Piratin and they caught the mood of the moment and played a leading role in the Cable Street Confrontation of 1936. Jack had been radicalised. Moseley was the trigger. The battle took shape. Jack found answers to the rise of Fascism and the Decline of Capitalism. He started to study Marx and Lenin; he took in the rise of Franco and the Spanish Civil War; he began to develop his understanding of the rise and fall of great powers; he became an orator of significance and would often find himself in conflict with the orthodoxy of the Board of Deputies.
Jack reflected the time in which he lived. The challenge was “the here and now” – for today and tomorrow” Battle was joined. Where the Blackshirts picked on Jews in Hackney, Dalston and Stepney they met Jewish resistance – fist was met with fist. Jews were now on the front foot and the CPGB grew in numbers and excelled in organisation. The Jews and the people of the East End traded punch for punch.
THE NEXT CHINA POST #606 WILL COVER PART 28 OF CHINA AND JACK PERRY AND, IN PARTICULAR, JACK’S VISIT TO CHINA IN 1973 WITH ROBERT ROOSA AND THEODORE SORENSEN.
