Why Is Xi Still Purging His Generals?

Joel Wuthnow CLM Issue 87 March 2026.pdf

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The removal of PLA senior generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli in January 2026 represented the peak, if not the end, of a massive purge of the military leadership that began in mid-2023. The absence of credible information from Beijing has allowed many theories about the causes of these dismissals to circulate, which often center on factional politics or power consolidation. An examination biographical records, however, yields more support for the view that most purges are intended to clean up corruption-prone parts of the PLA in support of Xi Jinping’s broad agenda of readying the military for combat by its 2027 centennial. The massive scale of the purges, however, has probably set that agenda back as key positions are vacant or filled by less experienced officers. The purges paradoxically also showcase Xi’s ability to remove powerful subordinates but also his inability to corral the bureaucracy, which failed to heed his earlier injunctions about professionalism. “Absolute leadership” of the party over the army remains elusive even for Xi at the height of his power.

For China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the year 2026 began on a similar note that had defined the past two years—with the downfall of senior generals, new questions about how ready they are for war, and rumors about how much Xi Jinping is in control of the world’s largest military. Investigations were announced into Zhang Youxia, who served as the PLA’s most senior officer as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and Liu Zhenli, who was its top operational commander as chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department.[1] This followed the dismissal of nine officers at the October 2025 Fourth Plenum, including CMC vice chairman He Weidong and CMC Political Work Department director Miao Hua.[2] These were only the latest targets in a wave that began in July 2023 with the removal of the leadership of the Rocket Force that encompassed the dismissal of several dozen generals and admirals.  

As usual, few details accompanied these purges. A PLA Daily editorial claimed that Zhang and Liu had “seriously fostered political and corruption problems that undermined the party’s absolute leadership over the military,” but without specifying any charges.[3] Announcing the removal of the nine generals in October, the Ministry of National Defense claimed that the infractions concerned “job-related crimes involving exceptionally large sums of money,” and had resulted in an “extremely serious impact” on the PLA.[4] Clues were offered in the cases of former defense ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe. The charges from the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission, which conducted the investigations and announced their expulsion from the party, indicated that both had solicited “huge sums of money.”[5] Li, former head of the Equipment Development Department, had also “polluted” the “military equipment sector.”[6] 

Even with these revelations, the reasons for the purges remain unclear. Official statements such as those issued about Zhang and Liu may be manufactured to justify the elimination of officers for political reasons. Indeed, the absence of credible evidence has led to theories about factional struggles in the military and even speculation that Xi is desperately trying to hang on to power by eliminating rivals who are lining up against him.[7] 

Nevertheless, an analysis of the career paths of those who have been targeted provides insight into the reasons for the purges. Biographies of the more than three dozen senior officers who have been dismissed since July 2023 suggest that Xi is engaged in an unprecedented campaign to clean up the leadership—reaching into sectors of the PLA untouched in his earlier anti-corruption drive from 2012–2015 and focusing on higher tiers of the command structure. The data also suggest that Xi’s main goal was to improve overall PLA readiness. Based on the positions and responsibilities of those purged and their career histories, explanations focusing on factional politics or power consolidation have less value.

The purges have renewed doubts that corruption may have undermined PLA readiness by compromising equipment, personnel, and training. Moreover, many key positions are vacant or staffed by less experienced officers, raising questions about China’s ability to conduct major operations. At a minimum, this points to added risks for Xi to order the PLA into combat during this decade. Making matters worse, it also appears that the system within the PLA that is responsible for preventing corruption in the first place is broken. Internal watchdogs including the political work and military prosecution systems have been purged, while power has been funneled into an opaque Discipline Inspection Commission system. The absence of external checks and balances creates structural impediments to altering the basic “conditions,” as Xi puts it, that give rise to corruption. The necessity for such campaigns after Xi has been in office for nearly 15 years speaks more to a ceiling that he has hit in pursuing absolute party control over the military than it does to his ability to corral the system.

Purge 2.0

Xi’s purges of senior PLA officers have taken place in two waves. The first involved the expansion of an anti-corruption campaign that began in the former General Logistics Department prior to his appointment as CMC chairman in November 2012.[8] This complemented a broader anti-corruption effort that Xi was spearheading across the party-state.[9] Between then and March 2015, an official report named 31 current or former generals who had been punished.[10] The highest-ranking officer was former CMC vice chairman Xu Caihou, though another former CMC vice chairman, Guo Boxiong, and current CMC members Fang Fenghui and Zhang Yang were later investigated. The second wave began in July 2023 with the dismissal of several Rocket Force leaders. While Beijing has not provided a complete list, the 2025 China Military Power Report identifies 43 officers purged between 2023 and December 2025, including CMC vice chairman He Weidong, CMC members Miao Hua and Li Shangfu, and former CMC members Wei Fenghe and Zhao Keshi (the investigations of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli came after that report was published and are not included).[11] There are possible inaccuracies in both lists given the opacity of the Chinese system, but they provide a basis to compare the two periods. 

While both campaigns nominally supported Xi’s drive to clean up the officer corps, the second wave is unique in several ways. First, it focuses on officers at higher tiers of the command structure. The 2012–2015 campaign mainly targeted officers at lower grades, comparable to U.S. two-stars (major generals or rear admirals).[12] This may have been because Xi lacked the political capital to evict higher officers at that time or due to the necessity of buy-in from senior commanders to support his 2015–16 reforms.[13] By contrast, as shown in Figure 1, the more recent investigations involve at least 18 officers at the Theater Command Leader grade, roughly equivalent to U.S. four-stars. These include positions such as theater commanders, service chiefs, the top political commissars in the theater and service headquarters, and senior officials in the CMC departments. The campaign also removed 19 individuals a grade lower, at the Theater Command Deputy Leader grade (similar to U.S. three-stars).

Figure 1: Grades of the Highest Officers Purged in 2012–2015 vs. 2023–2025

Second, the 2023–2025 probes cover more officers from outside the ground forces. The overwhelming majority of officers in the 2012–2015 campaign were from the army. This reflected the focus of the campaign on positions typically held by army generals, such as logistics officers and commanders of the provincial military districts, whose functions include mobilization and supervision of the local militia forces. As demonstrated in Figure 2, the 2023–2025 purges extended more deeply into the navy and Rocket Force, with a few officers also from the People’s Armed Police and former Strategic Support Force. The air force was less prominent but not immune given the dismissal of former Air Force commander Ding Laihang from his position as a representative to the National People’s Congress in December 2023.

Figure 2: Service Affiliations of Officers Purged in 2012–2015 vs. 2023–2025

Third, the recent purges focus on officers in key Beijing-based positions. As noted in Figure 3, most of the officers caught up in the previous round were from obscure regional positions, primarily in the military districts or in the military academies where there may have been opportunities for corruption and supervision may have been more lax. Beginning with the purge of the Rocket Force leadership, Xi’s latest campaign has implicated officers at the center. This includes leaders of several CMC departments, including the Joint Staff, Political Work, and Training and Management departments, and the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, as well as in the army, navy, Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force, and People’s Armed Police headquarters. Nevertheless, the campaign also toppled senior leaders (commanders, deputy commanders, or service component commanders) of the theater commands—which are the main regional organizations responsible for warfighting—rather than the lower-level military districts.

Figure 3: Organizations of Officers Purged in 2012–2015 vs. 2023–2025

Fourth, the 2023–2025 purges cut more deeply into the operational muscle of the senior leadership than the earlier round. As shown in Figure 4, the focus of the 2012–2015 campaign was on political commissars, which corresponds to the impression that the PLA was trying to address corruption in the personnel system.[14] The recent purges also involved a number of political commissars, the highest-ranking of which was Miao Hua, but most of the 43 officers listed in the China Military Power Report had operational backgrounds. Some of these individuals were in service headquarters or CMC departments, and others were in theater commands, but all possessed decades of experience in successively senior operational roles.

Figure 4: Functional Specialties of Officers Purged in 2012–2015 vs. 2023–2025

In short, the purges that began in July 2023 should not be interpreted as simply a second act of the earlier anti-corruption campaign but as a more audacious movement against the PLA senior leadership, involving higher-level officers, those in bureaucratic fiefdoms (such as the service headquarters and theaters) largely untouched in earlier purges, and involving those with some of the lengthiest operational pedigrees in the force.

The Relentless Pursuit of Readiness

Analysts have offered four basic explanations for the latest round of purges. These vary along two dimensions (see Table 1). First is whether the dismissals are based on politics or a professional motivation to clean up the military and promote higher standards. Second is whether the campaign is confined to a specific network or group, or whether it involves a more comprehensive attempt to rebalance the system. The discussion below weighs evidence from the careers of the purged officers against each of the resulting explanations: a targeted cleanup of the PLA, strife among competing factions, Xi’s Stalin-esque need to consolidate and maintain power, or promoting overall readiness. While each of these perspectives has merit, the final explanation can best account for the range of officers purged since July 2023.

Table 1: Range of Explanations for Purges

	Political	Professional
Specific	Factional Strife Targeted Removals of Opposing Rivals or Cliques	Targeted Cleanup Narrow Investigations to Clean Up a Particular Network or Sector
Systemic	Power Consolidation Stalin-esque Purges to Maintain the Power of the Core Leader	Overall Readiness Open-Ended Across-the-Board Investigations  to Improve Readiness

Targeted Cleanup. This explanation focuses on a particular subset of officers who share a professional linkage, and it speculates about graft in the system over which they have responsibility. The initial purges that implicated senior Rocket Force leaders and officials in the CMC Equipment Development Department, combined with rumors about deficiencies in missile or nuclear capabilities (including the infamous “missiles filled with water”),[15] led to conjectures that the purge sought to root out corruption in the development of strategic capabilities.[16] Others focused on the downfall of Miao Hua and several other political commissars, suggesting that the campaign had moved on to address graft in the personnel system.[17] 

However, this explanation is too narrow to account for the range of organizations and responsibilities of those involved in the recent dismissals. The fact that analysts identified clusters in the Rocket Force procurement and personnel systems alone implies that the campaign had expanded beyond a specific sector. Moreover, there are also many other targets who have no connection to either of these systems or to each other. Some examples include People’s Armed Police commander Wang Chunning, former Air Force commander Ding Laihang, Army commander Li Qiaoming, Eastern Theater commander Lin Xianyang, and Southern Theater Navy commanders Li Pengcheng and Ju Xinchun.[18] This speaks to the possibility that inspectors were casting a much wider net than initially intended.

Factional Strife. Another explanation draws from the history of factional politics in the PLA.[19] Specifically, there has been speculation about an escalating turf war between a network of officers around Miao Hua and He Weidong—who allegedly represented a “Fujian clique,” many of whose members began their careers in the former 31^st Group Army based in Fuzhou and supported each other’s rise despite humble beginnings—and an “old guard” (or “Shaanxi gang”) led by CMC vice chairman and close Xi confidante Zhang Youxia. Many analysts attribute the schism to a contest for power, though some also suggest that differences between these groups regarding how to handle military preparations for combat against Taiwan might have played a role.[20] 

Career data from purged officers provide limited support for this hypothesis; 18 of the 43 officers on the China Military Power Report list had some connection to He Weidong, either serving with him in the same command or based in the same geographic theater at the same time. Ten officers shared a similar connection with Miao Hua. While some overlaps might be coincidental, Miao and He themselves served in the 31^st Group Army, making a longstanding relationship between them in the years prior to their service on the CMC probable. There is also a cluster of officers on the list who were close to He later in his career. Interestingly, these officers were not with He at the time of his purge but had been part of his leadership team when he was Eastern Theater commander between 2019 and 2022 (see Table 2). Perhaps he had organized them into a clique and was wielding influence after they had been appointed to higher-level positions, with the blessing of Miao.[21] 

Table 2: Close Associates of He Weidong Who Were Purged

Name	Eastern Theater Position (2019–2022)	Position When He Weidong Was Purged in 2025
Yuan Huazhi	Air Force Political Commissar (2018–2019)	Navy Political Commissar
Li Pengcheng	Navy Chief of Staff (precise dates unknown)	Southern Theater Navy Commander
Lin Xiangyang	Army Commander (2020–2021)	Eastern Theater Commander
Wang Xiubin	Deputy Commander (2019–2021)	CMC Joint Operations Command Center Executive Deputy Director
Zhang Hongbing	Army Political Commissar (2019–2021)	People’s Armed Police Political Commissar
Liu Qingsong	Navy Political Commissar (2018–2022)	Eastern Theater Political Commissar
Wang Zhongcai	Navy Commander (2022–5)	Eastern Theater Navy Commander

Nevertheless, several factors reduce the value of this explanation. First, as Daniel Mattingly has shown through an analysis of 12,000 promotions, there has been a stark decline in the role of patronage networks involving CMC vice chairmen during the Xi era.[22] With Xi playing a more influential role in appointments than Hu Jintao, officers were more likely to be promoted based on professional qualification and political loyalty to him rather than on personal ties with a vice chairman. Second, the data do not support arguments about the role of a “Fujian clique.” Aside from Miao, only two of the 42 other  officers on the China Military Power Report list are from Fujian (He Weidong and Lin Xiangyang) and only four officers served in the 31^st Group Army; those purged from the ground forces had their roots in a variety of commands, including but not limited to the former Nanjing Military Region.[23] Third, there are notable individuals who had served with He in the Eastern Theater who were not purged, including He Ping, who was political commissar from 2019–2022. It is dubious that He Weidong could have organized a clique without participation from his own commissar. Finally, even if there were such a faction, it can explain only one subset of individuals: the majority have no career link to either Miao or He and many were from other services with no pedigree in any group army.

Power Consolidation. A third explanation is that purges are a feature, and not a bug, of Xi’s preservation of power. It is true that in earlier purges, Xi targeted individuals such as former CMC vice chairmen Xu Caohou and Guo Boxiong who had been appointed by his political rival Jiang Zemin. They were punished just as Xi was rounding up other political opponents such as Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua. The 2023–2025 purges, however, were different because the targets had all been appointed by Xi himself. Guoguang Wu argues that this fact is irrelevant because Xi is following a “Stalin logic” of continuous upheaval in the military and other sectors to preserve his own influence against possible or imagined enemies.[24] Purges of military officers may create a climate of fear that keeps Xi’s top generals and their fiefdoms in line.[25] 

This explanation is most relevant to the downfall of Zhang Youxia. Although Zhang had long been an associate of Xi, the removal of He left Zhang and Liu as the sole remaining CMC members with operational expertise. Zhang, in particular, a princeling son of a revolutionary hero and a close confidante of Xi, might have appeared to be an unacceptable threat to the core leader.[26] This fits with the “Stalin logic” of being most distrustful of those closest to the inner circle. There is also a Stalin-esque parallel to Zhang’s removal in who was left standing. Like Stalin, Xi removed many senior operational commanders who had the military expertise to pose a threat to the top civilian. Stalin also purged most of his field marshals but needed to retain Kliment Voroshilov, who was a political officer responsible for carrying out the purges; similarly, Xi was left with Discipline Inspection Commission chief Zhang Shengmin.[27] 

Nevertheless, this explanation has less utility with the other targets of investigations in the preceding two and a half years. Other than a handful of individuals who worked with Zhang in the former General Armaments Department and on the CMC, few of the officers in the 2025 China Military Power Report had notable career-long connections to Zhang. None of them had served in the 13^th Group Army with Zhang, and only two had their origins in the Shenyang Military Region. There is no obvious rationale for why these individuals would have been closer to Zhang than the hundreds of generals and admirals who were not caught up in the purges. This does not preclude the possibility of hidden networks, but it also cannot rule out the more straightforward explanation that there were many different networks of corruption that needed to be eviscerated for Xi to achieve his goals of cleaning up the PLA.

Overall Readiness. The final explanation is that the purges represented an element of a broader program by Xi to instigate the PLA to meet its modernization goals, including promoting readiness in 2027. The 2025 China Military Power Report discloses that Xi has ordered that by 2027 the PLA should be able to secure a “strategic decisive victory” against Taiwan, achieve “strategic counterbalance” through nuclear and other strategic capabilities to deter U.S. intervention, and implement “strategic deterrence and control” against other countries to prevent them from taking opportunistic actions against China.[28] Rather than an operational timeline for action against Taiwan, as it has sometimes been construed, the 2027 date is only the first of three modernization timeframes guiding the PLA’s development, with other targets in 2035 and 2049.[29] 

Serving this agenda, authoritative PLA texts explain that anti-corruption investigations should support higher levels of readiness. A circular on discipline inspection work notes that 2025 would be “a crucial year for winning the decisive battle to achieve the [2027] centenary goal of the PLA.”[30] It continues that anti-corruption efforts undertaken in 2025 “should be focused on combat readiness” and “concentrate on winning the decisive, protracted, and overall war against corruption, so as to provide strong style and discipline guarantees for achieving the centenary goal of the PLA.”[31] The document also heralds disciplinary achievements in 2024, including  “investigations and rectification and governance of quality and safety issues.”[32] Toward this end, the CMC also promulgated new discipline inspection rules focusing on promoting combat effectiveness, tightening supervision of “key areas such as planning and construction, personnel selection, and engaging in profit-making activities.”[33] A PLA Daily editorial released when Zhang and Liu were removed notes that 2026 will be crucial in meeting the “centenary goal” as well as the goals of the 15^th Five-Year Plan.[34]

The timeline of the 2023–2025 purge supports the view that the main intent was to keep the PLA on track to meet its readiness goals. The first batch of officers purged were from the Rocket Force, whose nuclear and long-range ballistic missile capabilities are key to the 2027 goal to achieve “strategic counterbalance” against the United States. If the campaign stopped there, the best explanation would have been a targeted cleanup. Instead, the scandal appears to have prompted Xi and his allies to expand the scope of investigations into other systems. Xi’s concern was on display when he called a rare gathering of senior officers to Yan’an in June 2024. Echoing warnings that he gave at a political work conference in Gutian nine years earlier,[35] he said that it was necessary to “eradicate the soil that breeds the conditions for corruption” and that discipline inspectors should follow a “strict approach” and “expand the breadth and depth of the anti-corruption struggle.”[36]

Xi’s Yan’an speech represented a pivotal moment for this second wave of purges. Prior to the conclave, 13 of the 15 officers on the China Military Power Report list were associated with the Rocket Force or the Equipment Development Department. After this date, 21 of 25 officers purged through December 2025 were from other systems. There were clusters associated with the political work system, including Miao Hua, but 16 of the 25 were operational commanders across CMC departments, services, and theaters.[37] These were individuals whose basic responsibility was to ensure that land, naval, air, and strategic forces would be ready for combat in 2027. Yet the fact that the lion’s share of senior officers were not purged, unlike under Stalin, speaks to Xi’s pragmatism: to prepare for war, the leadership cannot be totally gutted of its expertise. The worst offenders must go, but good performers need to stay, even if they benefited from corruption in the personnel or other systems along the way.[38]

This explanation can also account for the group of officers who had been close to He Weidong during his tenure as Eastern Theater commander. While it is tempting to reduce He’s purge to factional strife against Zhang Youxia, or to Xi’s desire to wrest control from a powerful aide, the elimination of officers who had served in the Eastern Theater can also be understood through a readiness lens. In this role, He would have been the most senior officer responsible for readying the force for a “strategic decisive victory” against Taiwan, including exercises designed to simulate combat. Yet those preparations are subject to disciplinary penalties if officers do not follow training guidelines or manipulate results to burnish their own reputation or avoid punishment.[39] It is notable that whereas the initial purges targeted procurement, discipline inspectors in 2025 were instructed to focus on operational considerations including “deviation of training and exercises from actual combat.”[40] PLA political work, ironically beginning with a speech by He Weidong himself,[41] began to discuss “sham combat readiness” such as substandard training that will “inevitably result in utter defeat on the battlefield.”[42] Hence, discipline inspectors could have found evidence that He and his associates had conspired to conceal or distort information on readiness or were failing to meet their targets for implementing combat realistic training. Rumors that the PLA had failed in some of its tasks during the response to the Pelosi visit to Taiwan in August 2022, toward the end of He’s tenure, would support this view.[43]

The purge of other generals might have created the necessary conditions for targeting Liu and Zhang. Prior to his CMC appointment, Liu led the army, which as the PLA’s largest service receives its largest budgets. Zhang previously headed the corruption-prone General Armaments Department. As CMC members, both also had opportunities to engage in graft through personnel selections, major procurement decisions, and in protecting those at lower levels who might not have been up to standard. By starting with lower-level aides, Discipline Inspection Commission inspectors might have been gradually working their way to the heart of the problem. The downfall of Zhang and Liu would then be the result of a process triggered initially by the Rocket Force scandal and not a spasmodic move by Xi.

To recap, the four explanations offer different perspectives through which to understand the contours of the 2023–2025 purge. As Jonathan Czin and Allie Matthias contend, a full accounting likely requires reference to multiple explanations. Yet, as they note, political elements such as factionalism were probably “embedded in a broader effort to clean house.”[44] Career histories of the purged officers support this argument. While political calculations can never be ruled out, a more straightforward explanation is that officers were dismissed because they were failing to do what Xi has asked of the PLA all along—to prepare to “fight and win battles.”

Implications

Interpreting the purges as part of Xi’s plans to prepare the PLA for combat has implications not only for readiness but also for party-army relations. At a technical level, gauging the extent to which the scandals have impaired the PLA’s ability to reach its 2027 objectives is difficult because Beijing has not publicized the damage and likely never will. Like any military, it would be loath to advertise its vulnerabilities. Certainly the PLA is not a Potemkin army because it continues to roll out new combat capabilities and carry out difficult operations, such as dual-aircraft carrier patrols past the first island chain.[45] The 2025 exercise Justice Mission was a sign that the PLA and coast guard continue to sharpen their ability to blockade Taiwan, which could be an option for Xi even if corruption has taken its toll.[46]

But deficiencies in equipment, personnel, and training may exist below the surface of these publicized activities and create greater risks and uncertainties for PLA forces in high-end combat conditions when readiness needs to be at peak levels.[47] Such factors would weigh on Xi’s calculus as to whether to order the PLA into combat not only because of known problems but because they point to a “known unknown”—the reality that Xi cannot be certain that inspectors have cleaned out all the rot and that critical systems are now reliable. This would apply to a full-scale attack on Taiwan or operations against the U.S. military. Moreover, the removal of Zhang and Liu meant that the CMC had narrowed to Xi and Zhang Shengmin; it had ceased to function as a forum for Xi to receive military advice and adjudicate decisions or as a high command that could plan and direct national-level operations. Along with frequent turnover in the theater commands, services, and CMC departments, Xi lacks a cohort of experts who have been in their positions for many years and can provide a strong hand to oversee the planning and leadership of major operations. This will create at least a near-term disruption.

A critic would counter that Xi will emerge from the latest round of purges more confident in the PLA’s capabilities. Some technical problems may have been addressed and some of the worst offenders removed (even if the PLA continues to suffer some weaknesses, such as lack of combat experience).[48] This may also send a message to powerful interests in the PLA that no one is immune from investigation. Xi might therefore be confident enough by 2027 to ramp up escalation against China’s opponents or at least his successors will inherit a more professional force that can institute his vision of becoming “world-class” by 2049, one prerequisite of which is to treat the underlying conditions that have made corruption so rampant.

However, this sanguine view probably gives Xi too much credit. The basic structural problem is that anti-corruption investigations have been carried out by the PLA; there were no external checks and balances other than Xi himself.[49] This situation reflects limits on his ability to weaken the PLA’s institutional position relative to other power centers in the party-state, such as civilian auditors who might be able to come in and conduct a wider-ranging financial probe or internal security forces like the Ministry of State Security. To the extent that military officers are captured by personal or bureaucratic interests contrary to the party’s, anti-corruption campaigns now or in the future will have been of limited use.

As a manifestation of this problem, the recent purges suggest that the system through which the PLA polices itself is broken. As part of his 2015–2016 reforms, Xi eliminated the General Political Department and replaced it with a more comprehensive supervisory toolkit, including the Political Work Department (responsible for personnel appointments), the military legal system, and the Discipline Inspection Commission.[50] This was supposed to have provided the CMC chairman with multiple ways to gather information about the PLA and to implement control. Yet recent purges of leaders of the Political Work Department, the Politics and Legal Affairs Commission, and the military courts suggest that the reformed system has not been working. Indications of turmoil in the CMC General Office, which orchestrates the bureaucracy and is a critical gatekeeper of Xi, compounds this problem.[51] The only part of the supervisory apparatus that has not been touched is the Discipline Inspection Commission, whose leader Zhang Shengmin was elevated to CMC vice chairman at the Fourth Plenum. This is the system that has been on the front lines of the recent purges. Instead of showcasing the value of a more intricate and diversified set of control instruments, the purges may have returned the PLA to an earlier state—concentrating power in a system which may become its own vested interest.

What does this imply for Xi’s authority over the PLA? In a sense, the purges suggest that Xi remains in firm control.[52] The removal of key figures such as Zhang Youxia and He Weidong illustrate Xi’s ability to uproot subordinates who are among the most elite and respected of their generation. This may provide him a political benefit like Mao swimming across the Yangtze river in 1966—proving that rumors of his demise are premature and setting the stage for major strategic decisions yet to come. Xi’s 2024 speech at Yan’an and the expansion of the campaign to root out graft beyond the procurement system and into core functions for personnel selections and operations also suggest that Xi is committed to ensuring that the PLA can meet its readiness targets. At a minimum, he has shed light on rot that has been festering inside the PLA and he has punished high-level offenders to an extent that would have been very difficult for Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao to achieve given their comparative weakness in the PLA.

But there is also a risk in overstating Xi’s authority. Xi may have mobilized the discipline inspection system to carry out expanded investigations, but this should not have been necessary if senior PLA officers had listened to his earlier injunctions at Gutian to return to their austere roots, nor would it have been necessary if they had been sufficiently coerced by the downfall of Xu and Guo. The fact that corruption proliferated into multiple systems and was engineered by those Xi trusted enough to promote into senior roles ultimately speaks to the limits on his ability to control the bureaucracy. Xi may have attained power greater than Jiang or Hu, but there is a ceiling on how successful any party leader can be. In retrospect, his quest for “absolute leadership” of the party over the army must be judged to have been incomplete.

This essay represents only the views of the author and not those of the National Defense University, Department of War, or U.S. Government.

About the Contributor

Joel Wuthnow is Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. His latest books and monographs include China’s Quest for Military Supremacy (Polity, 2025, with Phillip C. Saunders), Taming the Hegemon: Chinese Thinking on Countering U.S. Military Intervention in Asia (NDU Press, 2025), and Sea Dragons: Special Operations and Chinese Military Strategy (Naval War College Press, 2025, with John Chen). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, an M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies from Oxford University, and an A.B., summa cum laude, in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.

Notes

[1] “Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli Are Under Investigation for Suspected Serious Violations of Discipline and Law” [张又侠、刘振立涉嫌严重违纪违法被立案审查调查], Ministry of National Defense, January 24, 2026, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/qwfb/16439106.html.

[2] “China’s NPC Announces Personnel Changes: Five Military Generals Have Their NPC Representative Statuses Revoked” [中国全国人大人事任免五军方将领被终止人大代表资格], Lianhe Zaobao, December 27, 2025,  https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/china/story20251227-8020322. 

[3] “Resolutely Win the Decisive Battle, Protracted War, and Overall War Against Corruption in the Military” [坚决打赢军队反腐败斗争攻坚战持久战总体战], PLA Daily, January 25, 2026, http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2026/0125/c1001-40652025.html.

[4] “He Weidong, Miao Hua, and Eight Others Were Expelled from the Party and the Military for Serious Violations of Discipline and Law” [何卫东, 苗华等9人严重违纪违法被开除党籍军籍], PRC Ministry of National Defense, October 17, 2025, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/qwfb/16416031.html.

[5] “Li Shangfu, Former Member of the Central Military Commission, Former State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, Was Expelled from the Party” [中央军委原委员, 原国务委员兼国防部长李尚福受到开除党籍处分], Xinhua, June 27, 2024, http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0627/c1001-40265853.html; Wei Fenghe, Former Member of the Central Military Commission, Former State Councilor, and Minister of National Defense, Was Expelled from the Party” [中央军委原委员, 原国务委员兼国防部长魏凤和受到开除党籍处分], Xinhua, June 27, 2024, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/qwfb/16319114.html.

[6] “Li Shangfu, Former Member of the Central Military Commission, Former State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, Was Expelled from the Party.”

[7] Katsuji Nakazawa, “Analysis: Collective Leadership Reasserts Itself in China’s Military,” Nikkei Asia, July 31, 2025, https://asia.nikkei.com/editor-s-picks/china-up-close/analysis-collective-leadership-reasserts-itself-in-china-s-military.

[8] James Mulvenon, “The Only Honest Man? General Liu Yuan Calls Out PLA Corruption,” China Leadership Monitor, issue no. 37, April, 30, 2012, https://www.hoover.org/research/only-honest-man-general-liu-yuan-calls-out-pla-corruption.

[9] For analysis, see Kerry Brown, “The Anti-Corruption Struggle in Xi Jinping’s China: An Alternative Political Narrative,” Asian Affairs 49:1 (2018), 1–10; Andrew Wedeman, “Xi Jinping’s Tiger Hunt: Anti-Corruption Campaign or Factional Purge?” Modern China Studies 24:2 (2017), 35–94; and Samson Yuen, “Disciplining the Party: Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign and Its Limits,” China Perspectives, no. 3 (2014), 41–47.

[10] “Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, 98 Officials at the Vice-Ministerial Level or Above and Military Officers at the Corps Level or Above Have Been Investigated and Punished”  [十八大后98名副部以上官员和军级以上军官落马], People’s Daily Online, March 18, 2015, https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/zdgz/201503/t20150318_93350.shtml.

[11] Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of War, 2025), 27–28.

[12] There were also many junior and mid-level officers investigated, including more than 4,000 officers at the lieutenant colonel or above rank, from 2013–2015. This study, however, only focuses on senior leaders (generals and admirals). Dennis J. Blasko, “Corruption in China’s Military: One of Many Problems,” War on the Rocks, February 16, 2015, https://warontherocks.com/2015/02/corruption-in-chinas-military-one-of-many-problems/.

[13] Thanks to Phillip Saunders for this observation. On Xi’s need to respect institutional equities to achieve restructuring goals, see Joel Wuthnow, “Stabilizing the Boat: Revisiting Party-Army Relations Under Xi Jinping,” in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch, eds., The PLA in a Complex Security Environment: Preparing for High Seas and Choppy Waters (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025), 41–64.

[14] James Mulvenon, “Lawyers, Guns and Money: The Coming Show Trial of General Xu Caihou,” China Leadership Monitor, issue no. 45, October 21, 2014, https://www.hoover.org/research/lawyers-guns-and-money-coming-show-trial-general-xu-caihou.

[15] Peter Martin and Jennifer Jacobs, “U.S. Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army,” Bloomberg, January 9, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-06/us-intelligence-shows-flawed-china-missiles-led-xi-jinping-to-purge-military.

[16] Elliot Ji, “Rocket-Powered Corruption: Why the Missile Industry Became the Target of Xi’s Purge,” War on the Rocks, January 23, 2024, https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/rocket-powered-corruption-why-the-missile-industry-became-the-target-of-xis-purge/.

[17] K. Tristan Tang, “Cronyism and Failed Promotions: Xi’s PLA Purge,” China Brief, October 17, 2025, https://jamestown.org/cronyism-and-failed-promotions-xis-pla-purge/; Kathrin Hille, “Xi Jinping’s Purge of Military Officers Raises Doubts About China’s Readiness for War,” Financial Times, November 13, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/f61c20db-91fc-4404-b89c-e4ba79eedd73.

[18] Few of these dismissals have received attention from analysts. Vice Admiral Li Pengcheng and other navy leaders are an exception due to outstanding work by researchers at the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. See, e.g., Christopher H. Sharman and Andrew S. Erickson, “Dirty But Preparing to Fight: VADM Li Pengcheng’s Downfall Amid Increasing PLAN Readiness,” CMSI China Maritime Report No. 44, January 2025; Andrew S. Erickson and Christopher H. Sharman, “PLAN Chief of Staff VADM Li Hanjun: Fast-Rising Star of Training and Education Extinguished,” CMSI Note 15, July 2025; and Andrew S. Erickson and Christopher H. Sharman, “Replacement Removed: VADM/General Wang Houbin—Naval Star Turned Rocket Force Commander’s Terminal Trajectory,” CMSI Note 17, November 2017.

[19] Michael D. Swaine, The Military & Political Succession in China: Leadership, Institutions, Beliefs (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1992), part two.

[20] See, e.g., Dennis Wilder, “Glimpses of a Power Struggle Within the Chinese Military High Command,” The Diplomat, October 21, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2025/10/glimpses-of-a-power-struggle-within-the-chinese-military-high-command/; Joseph DeTrani, “Inside Xi Jinping’s Military Purge: Loyalty, Power, and Taiwan,” The Cipher Brief, October 31, 2025, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/inside-xi-jinpings-military-purge-loyalty-power-and-taiwan; Miles Yu, “Global Reciprocal Tariffs, Xi Jinping’s PLA Purges, and China’s Military Aggression Against Taiwan,” China Insider, April 9, 2025, https://www.hudson.org/economics/china-insider-global-reciprocal-tariffs-xi-jinpings-pla-purges-chinas-military-aggression-miles-yu; Gordon G. Chang, “Has Xi Jinping Lost Control of China’s Military—And China Itself?” Gatestone Institute, October 19, 2025, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21996/xi-losing-control-of-china; Gerui Zhang and Brandon Tran, “Political Purification and Strategic Realignment in the PLA,” China Brief, November 14, 2025, https://jamestown.org/political-purification-and-strategic-realignment-in-the-pla/; and “Xi Jinping’s Latest Purge: Paranoid or Purposeful?” The Economist, October 27, 2025, https://www.economist.com/china/2025/10/27/xi-jinpings-latest-purge-paranoid-or-purposeful.

[21] Presumably, Miao would have been able to influence those appointments due to his position as director of the CMC Political Work Department beginning in 2017.

[22] Daniel C. Mattingly, The Decline of Factions in the PLA (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2023). For additional analysis, see Daniel C. Mattingly, “How the Party Commands the Gun: The Foreign-Domestic Threat Dilemma in China,” American Journal of Political Science 68:1 (2024), 227–242.

[23] The four were He, Miao, Lin Xianyang, and Zhao Keshi. A few others had origins in other Nanjing Military Region–based group armies, such as the 1^st and 12^th, but would not necessarily have known officers from a different group army.

[24] Guoguang Wu, “Xi Jinping’s Purges Have Escalated: Here’s Why They Are Unlikely to Stop,” Center for China Analysis, February 26, 2025, https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/xi-jinpings-purges-have-escalated-heres-why-they-are-unlikely-stop.

[25] Mark Parker-Young, “Turmoil in the High Command Creates Political and Operational Disruptions,” Thoughts on China, April 17, 2025, https://markparkeryoung.net/posts/turmoil-in-chinas-high-command-creates-political-and-operational-disruptions/.

[26] Cate Cadell and Christian Shepherd, “China Fires Top General in Shocking Purge of Senior Military Command,” Washington Post, January 25, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/25/china-military-purge-zhang-youxia-xi/.

[27] Thanks to Elliot Ji for this observation.

[28] Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (2025), 10.

[29] Brian Hart and Bonnie S. Glaser, “China’s 2027 Goal Marks the PLA’s Centennial, Not an Expedited Military Modernization,” China Brief, March 26, 2021, https://jamestown.org/chinas-2027-goal-marks-the-plas-centennial-not-an-expedited-military-modernization/.

[30] “Interpretation of the Military Discipline Inspection and Supervision Work Tasks in 2025” [2025年军队纪检监察工作任务解读], PLA Daily, January 21, 2025, https://drc.xizang.gov.cn/gfdy/gfdy_xwzx/gfdy_xwzx_xwdd/202501/t20250121_458610.html.

[31] Ibid

[32] Ibid.

[33] “The Central Military Commission Issued Newly Revised Supplementary Regulations for the Military's Implementation of the ‘Regulations on Disciplinary Sanctions of the Communist Party of China’” [中央军委印发新修订的《军队贯彻执行〈中国共产党纪律处分条例〉的补充规定》] , PLA Daily, December 1, 2025, https://www.news.cn/politics/20251201/ceee4e6ef9c44547b732b1f94415bab3/c.html.

[34] “Resolutely Win the Decisive Battle, Protracted War, and Overall War Against Corruption in the Military.”

[35] James Mulvenon, “Hotel Gutian: We Haven’t Had That Spirit Here Since 1929,” China Leadership Monito, issue no. 46, March 19, 2015, https://www.hoover.org/research/hotel-gutian-we-havent-had-spirit-here-1929.

[36] “The Political Work Conference of the CMC Commission was held in Yan'an; Xi Jinping Attended the Meeting and Delivered an Important Speech,” Xinhua, Jule 19, 2024,  http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2024/0619/c1024-40260089.html.

[37] The dismissal dates for 3 of the 43 officers on the China Military Power Report list are unclear and therefore are not included in this analysis.

[38] Indeed, a consequence of Stalin’s much larger purge was the collapse of Soviet military leadership that Hitler saw as an opportunity when he decided to invade Russia in 1941.

[39] Disciplinary Regulations of the Chinese People's Liberation Army [中华人民共和国中央军事委员会命令 ], PRC Ministry of National Defense, February 27, 2025, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/fgwx/flfg/16372287.html.

[40] “Interpretation of the Military Discipline Inspection and Supervision Work Tasks in 2025.”

[41] Amber Wang, “Chinese General Calls for Crackdown on ‘Fake Combat Capabilities’ in the Military,” South China Morning Post, March 9, 2024, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3254722/chinese-general-calls-crackdown-fake-combat-capabilities-military.

[42] See, e.g., Wang Yaodong, “Taking Action Against All Deep-Rooted Problems That Impact Combat Effectiveness” [向一切损害战斗力的痼疾开刀], PLA Daily, August 24, 2024, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/jmsd/16333218.html; “From ‘Waiting for Alerts on Thursdays’ to ‘Ready to Deploy at Any Time,’ an Army Brigade Is Cracking Down on False Combat Readiness” [从“周四等警报”到“随时能出动,” 陆军某旅整治虚假备战现象], PLA Daily, November 17, 2025, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/wzll/lj/16422315.html.

[43] Minnie Chan, “How Pelosi’s Trip to Taiwan Set Off a New Wave of U.S.–China Electronic Warfare,” South China Morning Post, August 14, 2022, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3188803/how-pelosis-trip-taiwan-set-new-wave-us-china-electronic.

[44] Jonathan A. Czin and Allie Matthias, “Assessing China’s Fourth Plenum: Policy Continuity, Personnel Turmoil,” Brookings Institution, November 26, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/assessing-chinas-fourth-plenum-policy-continuity-personnel-turmoil/.

[45] Sharman and Erickson, “Dirty But Preparing to Fight.”

[46] John Dotson, “The PLA’s ‘Justice Mission-2025’ Exercise Around Taiwan,” Global Taiwan Institute, January 2, 2026, https://globaltaiwan.org/2026/01/pla-justice-mission-2025/.

[47] M. Taylor Fravel, “Is China’s Military Ready for War?” Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-military-ready-war-xi-jinping-taylor-fravel.

[48] Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, China’s Quest for Military Supremacy (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2025).

[49] Joel Wuthnow, “Can Xi Jinping Control the PLA?” China Leadership Monitor, issue no. 83, February 27, 2025, https://www.prcleader.org/post/can-xi-jinping-control-the-pla.

[50] Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications, INSS China Strategic Perspectives 10 (2017), 32–35. The legal system and discipline inspectors previously reported to the General Political Department, whose last chief, Zhang Yang, was purged for corruption and committed suicide in 2017.

[51] Mark Parker-Young, “Turmoil in the High Command Creates Political and Operational Disruptions.”

[52] Jonathan A. Czin and John Culver, “Why Xi Still Doesn’t Have the Military He Wants,” Foreign Affairs, August 18, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/why-xi-still-doesnt-have-military-he-wants.

Photo credit: Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons