Retired PLA general Xu Caihou: a big shot with friends in high places
As a protégé of Jiang Zemin he rose swiftly through the ranks and wielded great power
Retired PLA general Xu Caihou, the subject of a high-profile corruption probe, was a man who wielded immense power and moved in the very highest political circles.
As one of three vice-chairmen of the all-powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), he also worked with President Xi Jinping, who is chairman of the commission.
Xu is also believed to be an ally of Zhou Yongkang, the former security tsar and Politburo Standing Committee member who is also under graft investigation.
Born in June 1943 in the port city of Dalian, Xu, a graduate in electronic engineering from the Harbin Institute of Military Engineering, joined the army in 1963. He joined the party in 1971 and spent the early part of his career in the Jilin military area command before moving to Beijing.
His rise from being a political commissar in the 16th Group Army to assistant to the director of the PLA General Political Department in 1992 was widely believed to be a move by the party to fill the vacuum left by the purging of powerful general Yang Shangkun , his half brother Yang Baibing and their allies in the same year by Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin .
Xu was in charge of the PLA Daily in 1993 before being promoted to deputy director of the PLA General Political Department in 1999, and he was promoted to the CMC in 2000.