As President Xi Jinping defies standard protocol by constantly reshuffling his line-up of personal bodyguards, the effects of his administration’s anti-corruption campaign has reached the Central Security Bureau as it now faces major structural changes.
In a report by the Want China Times (WCT), Xi has removed the entire personnel for the Central Security Bureau and replaced them with figures from field armies. Both the head of the Bureau Cao Qing and deputy head Wang Wing were sacked and allegedly transferred to another department, while Wang Shaojun, formerly the deputy head, was promoted to the top position.
However, unconfirmed reports are circulating that Wang Qing had been arrested while Cao Qing was transferred to the post of deputy commander at the Beijing Military Region after a series of other changes.
Bodyguards of the party leadership are usually selected by the bureau. Senior Politburo members are assigned a squad of guards and members of the Standing Committee, the party's top tier of officials, are provided with a platoon of guards.
Since Xi acquired party leadership by the end of 2012, security detail assignment has allegedly been approved by Li Zhanshu, director of the CPC General Office and concurrently the political commissar of the Central Security Bureau. According to the WCT report, this implies that former bureau chief Cao Qing had never controlled the bodyguard selection of President Xi.
The purge of the security bureau comes on the eve of the lianghui, an annual meeting between the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Furthermore, President Xi has set a record for implementing a large-scale reform in the bureau, which suggests his distrust of the previous leadership.
The anti-corruption campaign has recently taken down notable heavyweights deeply entrenched in government bureaucracy, such as former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang and retired vice chair of the Central Military Commission Guo Boxiong.