Why Xi Still Doesn’t Have the Military He Wants

Jonathan A. Czin and John Culver

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For the high command of the People’s Liberation Army, Xi Jinping’s third term as China’s president has been a period of almost operatic tumult. Altogether, at least 21 senior officers have been removed since Xi started his third term in 2022, including three of the seven members of the Central Military Commission, the supreme military body of the Chinese Communist Party. Many of the members of the PLA’s most senior ranks, including the defense minister and the officer who oversaw just about every general officer promotion for over a decade, have been disgraced. By the end of his tenure, Xi could well exceed the mercurial Mao Zedong in his body count of officers who have been purged.

Although Xi oversaw military purges earlier in his career and even imposed a sweeping overhaul of the PLA’s command structure in 2015, this recent shakeup has raised eyebrows since many of the affected men were Xi’s putative allies rather than potential political rivals. The ousting of senior officers who were once considered untouchable has fed a flurry of rumors that Xi is losing his grip over the PLA—and even prompted more extreme claims that Xi’s own political demise might be imminent.

But rather than Xi’s diminution, the recent moves more likely reflect Xi’s continued dominance of the military. Much like a Mafia don, Xi has shown that he considers even his associates to be disposable. More important, the staggering political casualties reflect that he is losing patience with his military rather than his control over it. The moves demonstrate his continued dissatisfaction with the PLA’s high command and can be seen as part of an ongoing process of achieving his larger goals of bending the military to his will. Indeed, Xi wants to ensure he can employ violence with confidence, but Xi’s confidence seems to be the rarest and most precious commodity for an otherwise well-resourced military.

Xi sees his military agenda as a centerpiece of his legacy. Whereas Xi’s predecessors focused their political firepower primarily on advancing major economic reforms, some of the most dramatic reforms of the Xi era have occurred in the military. Two goals have driven his unforgiving management of the PLA. His paramount aim is ensuring the military is thoroughly politicized and thus willing to fulfill its role as the ultimate guarantor of the party’s rule should it be challenged by internal unrest. And Xi also wants a military that can fight if he needs it to do so, including against the U.S. military.