Xi attempts to restore order in the PLA

HONG KONG: Communist Party of China chairman Xi Jinping continues to repair the upper echelons of China’s military — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) — as key figures arrive and depart in disgrace in regular succession.

The reason for the top brass’ decimation is none other than Xi himself, who personally promotes these figures and then discards them when they fail to meet expectations.

This throws in doubt Xi’s ability to pick a winner. After all, he has achieved almost demigod status in China as its guiding light, and yet he seems a poor judge of character. Or perhaps the revolving door at the top of the PLA shows the total rot lying within?

According to a database kept by the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 101 senior officers across almost all PLA sectors have been swept aside since 2022 alone. This represents 52% of positions in the PLA leadership having been adversely impacted.

This equates to an unprecedented purge of China’s military, as Xi wrestles to gain absolute political and personal loyalty. He wants to disrupt the quanxi patronage and loyalty networks that permeate China’s elites, and make sure the PLA is subservient to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, was warmly welcomed in Pyongyang on Monday as he arrived for a state visit to the DPRK. pic.twitter.com/NBbMQPwaos

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) June 8, 2026

Just recently, Xi picked new candidates to replenish the top rungs. On 29 June 2026, two newly promoted generals appeared at the 105th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. The pair was promoted at a ceremony in Beijing on 3 July, with Xi in attendance. Doubtlessly, he is hoping for better results than before.

One luminary was General Zhang Shuguang, who wears two hats as Secretary of the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) Discipline Inspection Commission, and as Director of the CMC Supervisory Commission. The second figure was General Wang Gang, Commander of the PLA Air Force (PLAAF).

With these two promotions, the PLA now has six active personnel of general rank. This indicates Xi is belatedly attempting to stabilise the PLA’s command structure after so much turmoil and churn. The existing four are Defence Minister Dong Jun; Commander of the Central Theater Command Han Shengyan; Vice Chairman of the CMC Zhang Shengmin; and Commander of the Eastern Theater Command Yang Zhibin.

Discussing these promotions in an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) paper, Ying Yu Lin — who is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei — commented, “The Chinese military’s latest promotion of new generals should not be viewed simply as an effort to fill vacancies, but as part of its reconstruction following purges of senior leadership”.

He noted that these changes highlight Xi’s prioritisation of “internal control and the force’s management and restoration, potentially pushing any major military operations aside”.

General Zhang’s role in leading the Commission for Discipline Inspection is critical, for this organisation is charged with rooting out nefarious criminal and political behaviour. It is the PLA’s highest anti-corruption and internal supervision agency. Xi desperately needs someone he can trust in this post, and Zhang has a long career in discipline investigations.

Ying, in his ASPI article, commented thus: “For Xi Jinping, he is not simply another senior officer: he is the successor to Zhang Shengmin’s discipline inspection network and the inheritor of the PLA’s internal, coercive control mechanism. His promotion highlights Xi’s continuing concern with internal control, political loyalty and disciplinary rectification inside the military. In other words, Zhang’s promotion to general is not based primarily on operational experience. Its significance lies in his ability to help Xi maintain control over the PLA’s anti-corruption and supervision system.”

Given the importance of this post, Zhang may well be tapped to enter the CMC – the top body headed by Xi and overseeing all of China’s military and paramilitary apparatus – at the 21st Party Congress next year.

As for the other newly promoted figure, PLAAF head General Wang Gang is a former aerobatic pilot. Incidentally, he visited Pakistan in July 2025 in the wake of the India-Pakistan border clash. He reportedly discussed lessons learned from Pakistan’s air combat experience against India.

Xi seems intent on restoring morale and strengthening management of the PLAAF. Another incidental point is that Yang Wei, who designed the PLAAF’s star fifth-generation J-20 fighter, is reportedly being investigated for corruption. The choice of Wang, given his own piloting experience and background in training, will reassure the air force that its force-building efforts remain on track.

Wang and Zhang were born in 1965 and 1964, respectively, illustrating how the “younger generation” born in the 1970s are yet to reach the highest levels of China’s military. By filling vacancies with figures who were previously deputies, this should help stabilise the organisation and ensure a measure of continuity. However, Xi does not yet seem ready to appoint younger officials to these highest levels.

Has the PLA’s operational capability been harmed by this turmoil at the top? John Culver, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution in the USA, remarked, “While Xi’s actions are likely to harm PLA readiness and combat effectiveness over the next few years, he is also ensuring that the force will be more politically reliable – not only in the event of war, but in the face of a potential repeat of Tiananmen-era internal turmoil, this time without the military opposition to party direction that occurred in 1989.”

It should be noted too that combat operations are led by theatre commanders, whereas the heads of the services (such as General Wang) are responsible more for administration, force structure, training and equipment planning. Their operational roles in wartime command are more limited and, in any Taiwan contingency, the lead organ would be the Eastern Theater Command.

Ying, in his ASPI report, concluded, “These promotions should not be viewed simply as an effort to fill vacant general-rank positions. They should be understood as part of the PLA’s post-purge reconstruction. Zhang Shuguang represents discipline inspection and political control, while Wang represents service-level stability and air force management. Their shared significance is that Xi is rebuilding control over the PLA’s senior ranks while continuing to purge and replenish the force at the same time. By elevating a trusted discipline inspection officer and a professional service commander capable of maintaining institutional stability, Xi is attempting to restore his grip over the PLA’s upper echelon.”

This year alone, a great number of disap expulsions have occurred. For example, the National People’s Congress (NPC) updated a list of deputies representing the PLA and People’s Armed Police on 26 June 2026. The number of deputies on the list actually decreased by six to 237. Those removed were three generals – Xu Xueqiang, Li Fengbiao and Guo Puxiao — and three lieutenant generals — Wang Kangping, Zhang Minghua and Yin Hongxing.

Earlier, at the 21st session of the 14th NPC Standing Committee in late February 2026, the CCP voted to delete no fewer than three generals, two admirals, four major generals and one lieutenant general as deputies. Most of these figures had already disappeared a year or more beforehand. Their expulsion was formal confirmation that their fates are sealed.

The ten victims of that round of dismissals were Major General Bian Ruifeng, Assistant Director of the Political Work Department; Lieutenant General Wang Donghai, Political Commissar of the National Defense Mobilization Department; General Li Qiaoming, Commander of the PLA Ground Force; Major General Ding Laifu, Commander of the 73rd Group Army; Admiral Shen Jinlong, Commander of the PLA Navy (PLAN); Admiral Qin Shengxiang, Political Commissar of the PLAN; General Yu Zhongfu, Political Commissar of the PLAAF; Major General Yang Guang, Commander of the 64th Base, PLA Rocket Force; General Li Wei, Political Commissar of the Information Support Force; and Major General Liu Shaoyun, President of the PLA’s Military Court.

That was not all. The 15th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference voted in early March 2026 to remove three generals. These were: General Han Weiguo, former commander of the PLA; General Liu Lei, former political commissar of the PLA; and General Gao Jin, former head of the Logistics Support Department.

However, the two highest-profile arrests were CMC Vice-Chairman Zhang Youxia and chief of the Joint Staff Department Liu Zhenli. Their detentions were officially acknowledged on 24 January 2026, long after they disappeared from public view. These were the most dramatic excisions Xi has performed in the PLA, and they left just Zhang Shengmin serving on the CMC alongside Xi. There were six members in the CMC in 2022 but, in an unprecedented state of affairs, only one remains. Of interest, Zhang’s focus is on discipline and personnel issues rather than military operations or training.

Ying drew two lessons in his ASPI research. The first is that “Xi still views internal management of the PLA as the most urgent military-political task”. The internal-discipline inspection system is a priority. After all, what is the point of promoting more generals if they only turn out to be as corrupt as their predecessors?

Ying’s second lesson was this. “Although the PLA will continue to display military strength through exercises, missile tests and far-seas operations, the core priority during this period of senior-level turbulence remains internal rectification, organisational stability and control over military morale, rather than the immediate launch of a high-risk external military operation.”

Taylor Fravel, Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also sees several implications for the striking number of PLA leaders Xi has hunted down. In a CSIS report, he wrote: “First, the depth of the purge suggests that dissatisfaction with the PLA leadership’s performance is a major factor in Xi’s calculus (in addition to concerns about corruption, political loyalty, military autonomy, military obedience or policy differences).”

Secondly, “Rebuilding the PLA leadership will take time. A large gap exists at the theatre command leader grade, with 38 officers in such positions having been dismissed or disappeared. They can only be replaced by officers serving in theatre deputy leader command positions. Yet with 56 officers in this grade having been dismissed, the pool of potential officers who can be promoted to theatre command level positions has been cut by more than one-third. Moreover, to be promoted to a higher grade, an officer typically must serve three to five years in their current grade, further complicating efforts to replenish the leadership positions.”

Thirdly, Fravel noted, “The purge underscores the challenges that PLA leadership would face, either with empty billets or newly promoted officers inexperienced in their new roles, in undertaking large-scale military operations such as a blockade or amphibious assault of Taiwan.

Although roughly half (53%) of theatre command-level officers who were purged came from the command track, this proportion grows to around two-thirds (68%) at the deputy theatre command level, highlighting the difficulty that the PLA will face to meet its ambitious modernisation goals.”

However, this is perhaps cold comfort. Indeed, Joel Wuthnow at the National Defense University in the USA issued this warning: “These personnel changes could give Xi reason to believe that the PLA will have brighter prospects in a war over Taiwan. Factors such as the threat of economic ruin and a possible military defeat at the hands of the United States could constrain Xi, but the results of a campaign that he believes has finally gotten corruption under control and put true professionals in place would push in the other direction.”

Wuthnow added, “Most worrisome, new generals might be in a weaker position than those who came before them to push back if Xi entertains the same war optimism that convinced Putin to attack Georgia and Ukraine. China’s opponents should therefore take little comfort in the recent disruption and prepare for these more concerning futures.” (ANI)