Defense minister likely under investigation; Huawei launch event set for 2nd anniversary of Meng’s return; Taiwan; Real estate

Summary of today’s Essential Eight:

1. Defense Minister Li under investigation: reports - Reuters reports that Defense Minister Li Shangfu did not attend a scheduled meeting with Vietnamese counterparts last week, and the reason given for the sudden withdrawal was “health reasons”, and the Financial Times reports that the US government believe he is under investigation. I also now hear he is under investigation. We had a long discussion of the Li situation in this week’s episode of Sharp China, starting around minute 22. If Li is in trouble it might be related to equipment/weapons procurement/development from the time Li was head of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission. The PLA has had a long history of corruption, some of Xi’s predecessors had tried to deal with PLA corruption in one form or another and they all failed. Xi was able to push through some major organizational reforms that had been talked about for a long time that no one else could get …