Xi may not control, trust the CCP’s military, analysts say
FORUM Staff
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping may still lack control of his military leaders and be unable to trust them in combat, analysts say.
Xi’s ongoing purge of top military officials may indicate his weak position, analysts contend.
Xi wants the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready to invade self-governed Taiwan by 2027. However, his latest military purges cast further doubt on that likelihood.
The purges “can have an impact on the image of the PLA and the perception of China’s willingness to use force,” Helena Legarda, lead analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute of China Studies, told The Diplomat magazine in December 2024.
“If Xi Jinping keeps having to replace top leaders because they are corrupt, how is he or other party leaders going to trust generals when they say they are ready to run a successful military campaign against Taiwan, or engage in conflict in the South China Sea?”
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has led a campaign to oust allegedly corrupt military officials, a campaign that he has intensified in the past two years by removing two defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, and a flurry of senior PLA officers. In the past year, he kicked out key leaders of the Rocket Force unit, which oversees China’s nuclear weapons program, including its chief, Gen. Li Yuchao.
Officers in the CCP’s PLA, which includes army, navy and air forces, swear allegiance to the party and are party members. Although Xi commands them as party leader and chairman of the Central Military Commission, China’s military officers are also politically powerful. This means Xi may not be able to trust their guidance on the PLA’s readiness, analysts said.
Although corruption also undermines force readiness, Xi is likely using corruption charges to eliminate challenges to his rule, analysts said.
The purges likely represent mounting challenges by party leaders against Xi. He likely is preemptively removing military leaders he suspects of posing a threat, Legarda told The Diplomat.
More recently, Xi removed Gen. He Weidong, the CCP’s second-highest-ranking officer, whom Xi had directed to plan a potential Taiwan invasion.
“The deeper problem — underscored by the internal turmoil — is that Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party may not even have a solid grip on their army,” Dr. Phillip Saunders and Dr. Joel Wuthnow, of the Washington-based National Defense University, wrote in The New York Times newspaper in May 2025.
“It is impossible to say for sure whether such dismissals are related to corruption — a stubborn and serious problem in the People’s Liberation Army — to ideological differences or to other reasons,” they wrote. “But the tumult raises serious questions about the competence and reliability of Mr. Xi’s military commanders. This is likely to weaken his appetite for war, offering Taiwan and the United States time to strengthen their defenses.”
