HONG KONG: Last week, a powerful task group comprising the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong and three escorting warships arrived in Hong Kong to fly the flag as the territory celebrated its handover anniversary. While this naval flotilla certainly reflected the massive investment that Chairman Xi Jinping has poured into the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese leader continues to winnow commanders and senior officers from among the PLA’s ranks.
The PLA, as the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has proved particularly stubborn in yielding to Xi’s uncompromising will and abandoning the chance for personal gain.
In fact, the latest military figure to be culled was Vice Admiral Li Hanjun, Chief of Staff of the PLA Navy (PLAN). Li’s dismissal from China’s 14th National People’s Congress was announced on 27 June 2025. Examining this sacking, Andrew Erikson, Professor of Strategy at the China Maritime Studies Institute, part of the US Naval War College, offered this comment, “Vice Admiral Li Hanjun was a fast-rising star, terminated before he could make his full contribution and career achievements.”
He had only been in the post since April last year. Li had previously served at the Dalian Naval Academy and was commandant of the Naval Command College, suggesting “he was well known and respected across the fleet,” Erickson assessed.
Indeed, “Li has influenced a generation of current PLAN operational leaders. His relentless advocacy of high-intensity training in both service-specific and joint roles suggests he had an outsized influence in shaping the trajectory of current PLAN training.”
The reasons for Li’s dismissal remain opaque, although doubtlessly he will be accused of “serious violations of discipline and the law”. Nonetheless, there is speculation that his abrupt sacking is connected to the downfall of Admiral Miao Hua, Director of the Political Work Department, who would have overseen Li’s selection and fast-tracked promotion through the ranks.
Li follows in the unenviable footsteps of Vice Admiral Li Pengcheng, who was defenestrated from his post of Deputy Commander of the Southern Theatre Command last December. Li Pengcheng was also an operationally experienced flag officer in the Navy.
Regardless, Erickson remarked that these “respective purges do not appear to have slowed the pace and scope of PLAN training around Taiwan, in the South China Sea or in the Western Pacific. The removal of Vice Admiral Li Hanjun suggests that Xi believes he can burn through a tremendous amount of talent to make the PLA into the force he envisions. If Xi continues to feel he can afford this price, then we must seriously consider the possibility that a degree of military leadership churn is ‘priced in’ to his approach to building the world-class forces he seeks.”
Of course, Xi’s anti-corruption campaign inside the PLA has been aggressive and wide-ranging. It has netted figures within the Central Military Commission (CMC) top body – General He Weidong, the aforementioned Miao Hua, and General Li Shangfu. The Equipment Development Department has been hit as well, losing General Rao Wenmin (deputy director) and Major General Lu Hong (head of the Armaments Department in the PLA Rocket Force [PLARF]). Indeed, of the four services within the PLA armed forces, none has been as thinned as much as the PLARF.
It lost General Wei Fenghe (a former commander); General Zhou Yaning (also a former commander); Lieutenant General Zhang Zhenzhong (former deputy commander); Lieutenant General Li Chuanguang (also a former deputy commander); General Li Yuchao (then current commander); and General Xu Zhongbo (then political commissar).
Elsewhere, the PLA Ground Force has seen the dismissal of Lieutenant General Li Zhizhong (deputy commander of the Central Theatre Command), and Lieutenant Generals Deng Zhiping and Lieutenant General You Haitao, both of whom served as PLA deputy commanders. Turning to the PLAN, its top-level firings include Vice Admiral Ju Xinchun (commander of the Southern Theatre Command Navy), and Li Hanjun and Li Pengcheng, mentioned earlier.
The PLA Air Force seems less affected, with its highest-profile victim being its former commander, General Ding Laihang. The careers of these military luminaries and high-profile figures are well and truly over, their future bleak. Numerous figures in state-owned military-industrial corporations have also been netted. One example is Liu Shipeng, deputy chief engineer at the China National Nuclear Corporation, who was also expelled in June. Others to suffer the same fate in December 2023 through till January 2024 were Wu Yansheng, President of China Aerospace Science and Technology (CASC); Liu Shiquan, President of Norinco; and Wang Changqing, Deputy General Manager of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). They were followed in April 2024 by Yuan Jie, President of CASIC, and Chen Guoying, President of China South Industries Group.
As Erickson noted, “Since Xi assumed power in 2012, an extraordinary array of flag and general officers, as well as defence industry leaders, has been removed. By my running tally, this includes: 15+ senior military officials and defense industry executives; eight CMC members, including Vice Chairman General He Weidong; 15+ military deputies to the National People’s Congress (since March 2023 alone); 79+ senior PLA officials at the vice admiral/lieutenant general (2-star) level and above; nearly the entire PLA Rocket Force leadership (August 2024); and twelve PLAN officers at the rear admiral (1-star) level or above have been, or are rumored to have been, dismissed.”
Erickson further believes Xi’s anti-corruption fight is intensifying. The top disciplinary agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), held a plenary session from 6-8 January 2025 to address anti-corruption priorities for the year. Xi set the tone, saying at the opening:
“Corruption is the biggest threat facing the party. We must…further strengthen our determination and confidence in the fight against corruption.” Erickson, the American professor, pointed out: “Anti-corruption will be a leading theme for the foreseeable future.
Although with the party inherently above the law but subject to elite power struggles, graft and influence peddling are endemic, and enforcement highly politicised – it must be understood in the PRC’s own context. Amid all this, dramatic rumours are swirling. ‘Shoes’ are continuing to drop.”
He added. “What are the implications for PLAN control and capabilities? Some go so far as to conclude that, because corruption is so bad, the PLAN cannot be very good. That notion I firmly disagree with.”
Indeed, Chinese industry continues to churn out advanced warships at an unprecedented rate. As of June 2025, the Jiangnan Shipyard at Changxing Island near Shanghai had no fewer than four Type 052D destroyers, two Type 055 cruisers, one Type 054A frigate, the Type 003 aircraft carrier, a Type 076 landing helicopter dock and three large China Coast Guard vessels simultaneously under construction.
The PLAN also continues to grow in capability and confidence. As an example, in early June, two Chinese aircraft carriers – Liaoning and Shandong – accompanied by three Type 055 cruisers, three Type 052D destroyers, three Type 054A frigates and three replenishment ships, were operating in the Western Pacific close to Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Liaoning conducted 550 fighter and helicopter sorties,
According to Japan’s Ministry of Defence, which was monitoring the deployment, Shandong completed around 230 sorties.
China described the exercise as “routine” and “not directed at any specific country”. However, what is significant is that this was the first time two Chinese carrier strike groups were simultaneously sailing beyond the Second Island Chain. It was therefore not routine, and it marked a milestone in China’s blue-water naval ambitions.
It represented both deterrence and experimentation, as the PLA conducts ever-more sophisticated joint operations farther from Chinese shores. In any Taiwan invasion, for example, the PLA would need to operate deep in the Pacific to prevent American and allied vessels from supporting Taiwan, and to stop them from leveraging Guam as a strategic base. Whilst the PLA is growing in strength, it therefore needs to be asked why Xi is so heavily purging its ranks. What is his purpose?
To date, Xi’s recent winnowing of the PLA can be broken down into two main waves. The first targeted the PLA Rocket Force, which maintains China’s nuclear missile arsenal. It also netted figures like former defence ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, with Xi apparently accusing the latter of “betraying” him. The second wave commenced around November 2024, and copped CMC members Miao Hua and He Weidong, with current Defence Minister Dong Jun also being implicated, but later cleared.
It is clear that Xi fears “mountaintopism” factionalism, where party, state and military leaders develop alternative power centres and accrue too much influence. Factions are real, for even Xi has his own factions, such as his connection to fellow “princeling” General Zhang Youxia, and to the Fujian clique containing PLA officers whose careers overlapped with those of Xi in Fujian.
Of course, it would be tempting to say Xi’s anti-graft campaign is simply the result of factionalism and power struggles, and that he is facing stiffening resistance.
For instance, Willy Wo-Lap Lam of The Jamestown Foundation think-tank in the USA posited that “political developments among the elite are beginning to point to a dramatic truncation of the power of the ‘core of the party centre’, Xi Jinping”.
Lam continued, “For over 18 months, Xi’s proteges – or at least people appointed under Xi – have been disappearing from leadership positions across these systems.
These personnel shifts have undercut Xi’s hold on power, though this does not necessarily mean that he faces a clear challenger or that he is in danger of imminent removal.”
The cadre who controls the army in China has historically been able to monopolise the nation’s economic and sociopolitical resources. Lam highlights four challenging groups to Xi: the military, princelings, retired elders and some among the dissenting middle and entrepreneurial classes. Yet no obvious rival has emerged from any of these groups. Nonetheless, there is another line of speculation, according to Lam.
“All along, the assumption has been that Xi has been steering the housecleaning to get rid of real and potential enemies among the top brass. The recent spate of personnel changes, however, has lent credence to the argument that Xi’s military foes are gunning down his proteges to weaken the base of the ‘party core’.”
This opinion is supported by the fact that, in July 2024, official propaganda organs like the PLA Daily began running articles praising “collective leadership”, which is the opposite of what Xi is trying to achieve.
There is yet another theory as to why Xi is being so aggressive. Is it because Xi is dissatisfied with the progress being made in combat preparedness within the PLA? He has acted decisively many times to modernise and slash fat from the PLA. One instance was his annulment of the Strategic Support Force last year, which he had created earlier, it must be pointed out, and its replacement with the Information Support Force. Xi did so because he was not confident in the former’s ability to support PLA operations.
Or perhaps there is a sense of Stalin’s paranoia here? Xi may be targeting both real and imagined opponents, even those he himself promoted earlier.
After consolidating his position, could it be that he is not recalcitrant about turning on allies and proteges in order to instil discipline and to set examples? Rather than any real threat to his power, these pogroms may therefore be viewed as Xi consolidating and centralising power over the PLA under his own personal authority.
Some news articles have asserted that the “Chinese military is tearing itself apart,” but this is too melodramatic and simplistic. The truth is that it is difficult to discern what is happening behind the scenes or on the other side of Xi’s cold facade.
Yet one unavoidable takeaway is that Xi is moulding the PLA into the force he seeks, one ready to obey his orders to conquer Taiwan and to repel the USA if need be. (ANI)
