The suspended officer, Admiral Miao Hua, served on the ruling Central Military Commission, China's highest-level military command body, and was stationed in the coastal province of Fujian when President Xi Jinping worked there as a local official, according to his official biography.

A top Chinese military official has been removed from office and is suspected of "serious violations of discipline", Beijing said Thursday, the latest senior apparatchik to fall in a sweeping crackdown on graft in the country's armed forces.

China has suspended a top military official and placed him under investigation for corruption, the defense ministry said, as leader Xi Jinping broadens a sweeping purge in the upper ranks of the world’s largest military.