China has put Defense Minister Dong Jun under investigation over a corruption-related scandal, a report citing U.S. officials said Wednesday, in a development that could undermine efforts to maintain military-to-military communications just months before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Dong is the third consecutive incumbent or former defense chief to be probed over alleged corruption in a wide-ranging scandal that has hit the top echelons of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Financial Times reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.

He has been defense minister since December last year, following the firing of his predecessor, Li Shangfu, over alleged corruption after just seven months in the position.

Both Dong and Li were appointed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Li himself had replaced Wei Fenghe, who was also probed for graft after retiring.

Details of the corruption allegations against Dong are not clear, the officials said, though they added that he had been ensnared in a wave of probes Xi had been leading into the Chinese military.

Asked about the report at a news conference Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning was quoted as saying it was just "chasing shadows" and did not offer further information.

China’s Defense Ministry and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Although the post of defense minister is largely symbolic under the Chinese system — Dong does not oversee combat forces — the position is widely seen as an important face representing Beijing’s diplomatic and military policy to the outside world.

Dong last week refused to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of a meeting of Asian defense chiefs in Laos, with the Defense Ministry in Beijing ostensibly citing concerns over U.S. weapons sales to democratic Taiwan, which China claims as a renegade province.

Austin, who met Dong in May during the Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore, described the decision not to meet again as “unfortunate,” while Beijing pointed to the Taiwan arms sales, saying Washington was “solely responsible.”

News of the graft probe on Dong came less than two weeks after Xi met U.S. President Joe Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru, where the two welcomed the resumption over the last year of high-level military-to-military communications, with both leaders reaffirming the need to continue to keep these channels open.

But it also came amid uncertainty over how Trump, who has already nominated a number of China hawks for key Cabinet posts, might approach the two rivals’ relationship. Xi, for his part, told Biden that China “is ready to work with the new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences.”

The investigation into Dong hints that Xi has expanded his probe into corruption in the PLA amid fears that it may not meet a 2027 deadline set by the Chinese leader that it be ready to invade Taiwan, the democratic island that Beijing claims as a renegade province.

The wide-ranging probe had previously appeared focused on corruption within the Chinese military’s Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s land-based missile and nuclear arsenals, and the powerful Central Military Commission’s (CMC’s) Equipment Development Department (EDD), which develops and acquires key military technology.

Over the past two years, Xi has overseen the removal of a number of key figures in the Rocket Force and linked to the EDD, part of an apparent attempt to install more loyal officials and quash corruption inside the service and department.

In 2022, the Chinese leader also fired Foreign Minister Qin Gang, whom he had appointed to the position, following reports of an extramarital affair with a Chinese woman in the U.S.

Dong, an admiral in the country’s navy, was considered an outsider and unlikely to be tainted by the scandals that had plagued the Rocket Force and EDD.

During a major Communist Party meeting earlier this year, Dong was not promoted to the CMC, the six-member body that oversees China’s military, prompting observers to question his ability to hold onto the post. The country’s defense chief has traditionally been a member of both the CMC, which is headed by Xi, and the State Council, China’s Cabinet-level executive body. Dong was not a member of the State Council, either.

Neil Thomas, an expert on Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, called the reported probe “another spectacular failure of Beijing’s internal vetting processes,” adding that the news was likely “embarrassing” for Xi.

“More heads could roll,” Thomas wrote on X. “Shows PLA corruption goes well beyond the Rocket Force.”