Inside Xi’s purge of China’s top generals and the battle for control

During the Cold War, a discipline called Kremlinology was used to interpret messages from the opaque Soviet government, whose secrecy often prevented many Western analysts and intelligence services from understanding what was happening in Moscow.

With the economic and political rise of China, a state led by a secretive communist party like the Soviet Union, global attention has shifted from Kremlinology to Beijingology, or Pekinology, as analysts try to decode the world’s second-largest economy.

On January 24, the Chinese defence ministry announced investigations into two of the country’s top generals, members of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) that oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), underscoring how opaque elite politics continue to make Beijingology an uphill battle.

The CMC, under Xi’s leadership, has seven members, but following recent removals, only one serving officer, a general, remains on the powerful commission: Zhang Shengmin, who was promoted to vice chairman in October.

According to the PLA Daily, the official voice of the Chinese military, Zhang Youxia, China’s top general and the first-ranked Vice-Chairman of the CMC and Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department “seriously undermined the authority and image of the CMC leadership” and “caused extremely serious harm to the Party, the state, and the military”. 

The latest purge comes in the backdrop of other high-profile removals by the Xi leadership. He Weidong, the second Vice-Chairman of CMC, was removed from his post in October amid corruption charges. 

Li Shangfu, a member of the CMC, who disappeared from the public eye while serving as minister of national defence in late 2023, was removed from the top military commission.

Miao Hua, director of the CMC political work department, lost his status in 2024 due to “serious violations of discipline”, which usually refers to graft-related issues in Chinese political language.

Unlike the accusations against He and others, which centred on corruption, the PLA Daily’s language toward Zhang and Li suggests that the two generals defied Xi’s political directives in ways that “reached a visible and widely recognised level within the PLA,” according to an analysis by Tristan Tang, an expert on Chinese politics.

Party vs military

Analysts have long argued that significant differences exist between China’s military and political leaderships over the country’s future as it engages in an escalating global power struggle with the United States. 

It also faces the prospect of confrontation with the West over Taiwan, which was founded in 1949 by anti-communist Chinese dissidents.

Ozgur Korpe, an academic at the National Defence University, views recent purges as part of Xi’s effort to consolidate his power against any potential military faction that might have coalesced around Zhang and Li, the two leading generals.  

“Zhang was a ‘heavyweight’ figure within the PLA, both because of his combat experience going back to the years of the Sino-Vietnamese War, and his family connections,” Korpe tells TRT World. 

The recent purges indicate that Xi aimed to prevent any independent power centres from developing during his rule, he says, referring to power circles formed around Zhang and possibly Li. 

An overview of official statements indicates Zhang’s disagreements with Xi Jinping over PLA development and training, a crucial issue for the Chinese leadership in meeting its 2027 and 2035 objectives. 

Xi aims for a military capable of seizing Taiwan by 2027, while Zhang predicts this will occur around 2035, according to statements and articles authored by both men. 

In 2027, the Chinese military should reach a level where it can employ high technology in its operations, and in 2035, the PLA should be a fully modernised army, according to Xi’s vision.

The vision also projects that, in 2049, the Chinese army should reach parity with the US military. 

While corruption may have played a role, the emergence of a significant power centre around Zhang that challenged Xi’s central authority, along with signs of PLA noncompliance or possible resistance to the CCP’s political objectives—from development to training—appears to have been a more decisive factor in the recent purges, according to Altay Atli, an international relations lecturer at Koc University.

“2027, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the PLA is crucial for Xi because his unprecedented third term will end and his fourth term will possibly start,” Atli tells TRT World. 

“Despite much global upheaval and uncertainties, Xi aims to enter this new term with a lot of strength, so the implementation of military objectives carry an utmost importance for his power projection.”

Over the past three years, the PLA has introduced new training models but has not yet completed a new joint training capability, which is necessary to implement Xi’s modernisation plan. 

And there has not been much progress in early 2026 either. This created tension between the army and the political leadership.

“Zhang as a career soldier might raise objections against Xi’s ambitious global plans indicating that the PLA might face capacity issues if Beijing forces its way through the Pacific or else,” Kadir Temiz, President of ORSAM, an Ankara-based think-tank, tells TRT World. 

On Monday, the PLA Daily published a front-page editorial that implied tension between Xi’s ideologically driven political agenda and the military. 

“The resolute investigation and punishment of corrupt officials such as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli removes obstacles and stumbling blocks that hinder the development of our cause,” the article stated. 

Unlike the old times, when “the PLA is a mostly self-policing institution where senior officers call the tune”, under the Xi leadership, this pattern has clearly changed, according to Christopher Johnson, a former top CIA China analyst, who is now the head of the risk consultancy China Strategies Group.

The PLA's relatively independent decision-making authority existed before Xi took power, with its “monopolies on intelligence and military-technical expertise granting substantial autonomy,” Johnson wrote in a recent article. 

“But Xi has since fought hard to bring the PLA to heel, and there are clear signs that it is paying off,” he added, referring to recent purges of Zhang and Li. 

With the latest purge, the seven-member CMC has been staffed with only one general under Xi’s chairmanship, demonstrating how China's military decision-making mechanisms have become dependent on Xi’s personal leadership, according to Korpe. 

“The CMC was not initially so politically focused,” Korpe says.

“Previously, there was a kind of ‘balance’ between the Politburo, the CMC, and the State Council. Today, it appears that this balance has shifted in favour of the leader, and Xi's authority has become concentrated to an unprecedented degree in the post-Mao era.”

The Politburo is the executive committee of the Central Committee of the CCP, a powerful political body led by a general secretary.

Before Xi’s leadership, both the Politburo and the Central Committee had some influence over the composition of the CMC. Currently, both the Politburo and the Central Committee are headed by Xi.

The State Council, the Chinese government, functions as the executive body of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country’s legislative authority. 

Corruption and personal rift

While all these removals have signalled a trend of Xi’s strengthening grip on Chinese politics, experts hold varying views on the dynamics of the growing purges within the closely guarded Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. 

Unlike supporters of the military versus party debate, some view Xi’s anti-corruption campaign as the main reason for recent purges. 

“We are in the land of guesswork when it comes to personnel in the leadership,” Charles Parton, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), tells TRT World. 

In recent removals, Parton sees Xi’s clear stance on punishing corruption at the highest levels of the party. 

“An example has to be set from the top,” Parton, who is also the former EU’s First Councillor on China.

“Zhang's past positions have been in areas where money and diversion of it were manifold. The chances are very high that he made money by promoting those who paid.”

In the past, some analysts pointed out the personal bond between Xi and Zhang, the two “princelings”, a term used to describe the descendants of Chinese revolutionary leaders and comrades of the country’s first communist leader, Mao Zedong, to partly explain their reach to the highest echelons of power. 

While the purges themselves are not surprising, given that under Xi, there have been so many removals related to anti-corruption investigations, Zhang’s arrest is stunning because he was regarded as the right-hand man of the Chinese leader, according to Temiz, the President of ORSAM.

“Zhang backed Xi throughout the latter’s political career, reinforcing him in his previous purges against other senior military officers and preventing the development of a movement against Xi within the military bureaucracy.”

Zhang’s purge might lead to various repercussions, triggering different conflicts across both political and military ranks, he says. 

Other experts see personal relationships not always as an asset in the context of the intense political fighting raging across different CCP factions. 

“What has happened is a stark demonstration of the nature of CCP politics. The ideas of friendship, personal loyalty and trust are tossed aside when it comes to perceived threats to power,” Parton says. 

But Xi’s removal of Zhang might also reflect a personal rift, as well as differences over the army's capacity and Taiwan timetables, he adds. 

“Zhang's personal background (known Xi from childhood, red royalty) may have led him to believe that he could speak out in ways which Xi does not appreciate (mistakenly),” he says. 

“Xi may have felt that he was being challenged. I don't mean his whole position and his future plans, but not getting the absolute obedience he may expect.” 

By adding this dimension to corruption accusations and other issues in military management, Xi might decide it’s time to target the 75-year-old general, according to the former top British diplomat.

“It certainly underlines the 'toe the line or get it in the chest' interpretation of political loyalty,” Parton says, emphasising that “crossing Xi or being corrupt is very dangerous” to anyone in China at the moment.