China appoints US-sanctioned General as Defence Minister

China on Sunday appointed a US-sanctioned army general as its new Defence Minister, displaying scant regard for Washington's ban on its military personnel. Gen. Li Shangfu, a Chinese aerospace engineer and General of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), was sanctioned by the US in 2018 for the purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missiles by China's Equipment Development Department (EDD) in violation of the US sanctions on Russia. The US sanctioned both the EDD and its then director Gen Li. The country’s rubber-stamp legislature unanimously confirmed the appointment of General Li Shangfu, a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army’s modernization drive, during a session on Sunday. Other senior appointments included four new vice premiers – Ding Xuexiang, He Lifeng, Zhang Guoqing, and Liu Guozhong.

In 2016, Li was named deputy commander of the PLA’s then-new Strategic Support Force, an elite body tasked with accelerating the development of China’s space and cyber warfare capabilities. He was then appointed head of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s governing defense body. The US Department of Defence's 2022 China Military Report described Gen Li as the general officer who offers “technical expertise on military modernisation on space issues” to Xi.