China’s top rocket scientist eased out

China has expelled its leading rocket scientist Wang Xiaojun from its top political advisory body, signalling the communist state’s widening purge from among the Chinese military’s missile force and aerospace contractors. The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) removed him at a meeting in Beijing on Monday – a year after he was appointed a member, state news agency Xinhua reported, without assigning reasons. Wang, 54, until recently led the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a prestigious state-run institute known as the birthplace of China’s aerospace industry. The CALT hails itself as the nation’s “oldest and largest base for the development, testing and production of missile weapons and launch vehicles”, according to its official website. Wang spent his nearly three-decades-long career designing rockets at the CALT, a subsidiary of the main contractor of the Chinese space program, the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Wang’s dismissal from the elite political body is the latest shakeup in China’s military-industrial complex. In December, three aerospace executives, including the chairman of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation – were stripped of their roles in the CPPCC. Two days later, nine high-ranking People’s Liberation Army officers were ousted from the country’s top legislature. Five of them are linked to the Rocket Force, an elite branch built up by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to oversee the development of the nation’s nuclear and ballistic missiles. @@@