Li Shangfu

Early Life and Space Career

Li Shangfu was born in February 1958 in Chengdu, Sichuan, with family roots in Xingguo County, Jiangxi. His father, Li Shaozhu, was a Red Army veteran and later a senior officer in the PLA Railway Corps. Li joined the Communist Party in June 1980 and, after graduating from the National University of Defense Technology in 1982, became a technician at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center; he later earned a doctorate in control theory and control engineering from Chongqing University.

Li spent 31 years at Xichang, becoming its director in December 2003 and a major general in 2006. As director he served as chief commander of the launch-site system for China's lunar exploration programme and headed the launch-site command for Chang'e 2, which lifted off from Xichang in October 2010.

Head of Military Procurement

In 2013 Li became chief of staff of the PLA General Armaments Department, and at the end of 2014 its deputy director. In February 2016 he was named deputy commander and chief of staff of the newly formed Strategic Support Force and promoted to lieutenant general. In September 2017 he succeeded Zhang Youxia as director of the CMC Equipment Development Department; he was elected to the 19th Central Committee that October and promoted to general in July 2019.

On 20 September 2018 the US government sanctioned the Equipment Development Department and Li as its director under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act over the acquisition from Russia of Su-35 fighters and S-400 surface-to-air missile equipment. In October 2022 he was elected to the 20th Central Committee and became a member of the Central Military Commission.

Defence Minister

On 12 March 2023 the First Session of the 14th NPC, on Premier Li Qiang's nomination, appointed Li State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, succeeding Wei Fenghe. His first trip abroad that April was to Russia, where he met President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu; on 28 April, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation defence ministers' meeting in New Delhi, he met Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the first visit to India by a Chinese defence minister since the 2020 border clashes. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June he said a conflict between China and the United States would be an unbearable disaster for the world; with US sanctions still in place, his encounter with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went no further than a handshake.

Downfall and Sentence

On 29 August 2023 Li gave a keynote speech at the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing, his last public appearance. According to a later Party announcement, the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision opened a case against him on 31 August. On 24 October the NPC Standing Committee removed him as State Councilor and defence minister; with about seven months in office, he was the shortest-serving defence minister in the history of the People's Republic.

On 27 June 2024 the Politburo expelled Li from the Party, saying he had used his position to benefit others in return for huge sums of money, had given money to others to obtain improper benefits, and had seriously polluted the political ecology and conduct of the military equipment sector; the CMC had already expelled him from the armed forces and stripped him of his rank of general. The Third Plenum confirmed the expulsion that July, and in September the NPC Standing Committee announced his removal as an NPC deputy. On 7 May 2026 the Military Court sentenced him for bribe-taking and bribe-giving to death with a two-year reprieve, lifelong deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all personal property, to be followed by life imprisonment without commutation or parole.