China reshuffles army chiefs

Peking (Reuter) - China has completed its most sweeping reshuffle of army commanders since the Communist state was founded in 1949, boosting the power of Jiang Zemin, the Communist Party chief, a Hong Kong newspaper controlled by Peking said yesterday.

'This reshuffle of senior military officials was the biggest since the founding of the nation in terms of its large scale, the number of personnel involved and its broad extent,' Wen Wei Po said. The report confirmed accounts by Chinese sources and Western diplomats.