By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Xi Jinping Deepens Military Purge

China’s military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party council that oversees the armed forces, appear to be vacant after members were arrested or went missing.

In outward appearances, China’s military has never been stronger. Its naval ships venture farther across the oceans. Its nuclear force grows by about 100 warheads every year. Its military flights around Taiwan are increasingly frequent and intimidating. Every few months, China unveils new weapons, like a prototype stealth fighter or newfangled landing barges.

Internally, though, China’s military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party council that oversees the armed forces, appear to be vacant after members were arrested or went missing.

That internal turbulence is testing President Xi Jinping’s effort, going back more than a decade, to build a military that is loyal, modern, combat-ready, and fully under his control.

Control over the military is so existential. It’s inherently explosive. That’s why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed.

One of the jarring absences in the military leadership is that of General He Weidong, the second most senior career officer on the Central Military Commission. He has disappeared from official public events and mentions, an unexplained absence that suggests he, too, is in trouble and may be under investigation.

Another top commander, Admiral Miao Hua, who oversaw political work in the military, was placed under investigation for unspecified “serious violations of discipline”, a phrase that often refers to corruption or disloyalty.

He was among around two dozen, if not more, senior PLA officers and executives in the armaments industry who have been investigated since 2023, according to a recent tally by the Jamestown Foundation.

Both men had risen unusually quickly under Xi’s patronage. While Chinese officials are vulnerable to investigations for corruption or disloyalty even in the best of times, for him to lose them both reveals an uncommon degree of top-level upheaval.

Xi has set a 2027 target for modernizing the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, and also, according to some US officials, for gaining the ability to invade Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

The current wave of investigations and removals has reached some commanders handpicked by Xi, suggesting recurrent problems in a system that he has tried for years to clean up.

Earlier, Xi launched an intense campaign to clean up corruption in the military and impose tighter control, culminating in a big reorganization.

China has removed a top general from the nation’s apex military body led by President Xi Jinping, as the defense establishment faces a wave of purges.

Admiral Miao Hua, 69, who oversees political loyalty in the armed forces, was earlier ousted from the national Central Military Commission (CMC), according to a statement from the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

The six-man commission is the armed forces’ premier decision-making body and one of the most powerful institutions in China.

The removal of the 15 senior officials was likely the tip of the iceberg.

One of the jarring absences in the military leadership was that of General He Weidong, the second most senior career officer on the Central Military Commission. He has disappeared from official public events and mentions, an unexplained absence that suggests he, too, is in trouble and may be under investigation.

Control over the military is so existential. It’s inherently explosive. That’s why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed.

China’s leadership would not be taking such extreme anti-corruption measures unless it felt the PLA’s operational effectiveness was being impacted. Studies.

The crackdown would likely create a period of risk aversion and paralysis through lower ranks.

A senior US defense official told reporters that the anti-corruption hunt can also slow down military projects, including in China’s defense industry.

Once they uncover corruption in one place or involving one senior official, there’s sort of a sort of spiraling effect which inevitably seems to draw in additional officials.

The report pointed to several removals from China’s military rocket force, known as the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), an elite arm of the PLA that oversees its most advanced conventional and nuclear missiles.

The impact on PRC (People’s Republic of China) leaders’ confidence in the PLA after discovering corruption on this scale is probably elevated by the PLARF’s uniquely important nuclear mission.

Earlier, China’s Communist Party must “turn the knife inward” to eliminate problems of discipline, including corruption, President Xi Jinping said, in his call to hunt down corrupt officials and those who corrupt them.

 

 

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