Xi’s military purge narrows China’s command — and raises the risk of miscalculation
China’s sweeping purge of senior generals has shrunk the country’s top command to a bare minimum, concentrating power around Xi Jinping just as Western leaders intensify outreach to Beijing. The shake-up, which removed Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and Joint Staff chief Gen. Liu Zhenli for “violations of discipline and law,” has alarmed analysts who see both short-term caution and longer-term volatility in the world’s No. 2 military.
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The Central Military Commission is China’s apex military organ, overseeing the People’s Liberation Army, navy, air force, rocket and strategic nuclear forces, armed police and militia. Xi chairs the body. With Zhang and Liu ousted, the seven-member commission has been pared to two: Xi and Zhang Shengmin, the commission’s discipline chief. The optics underscore the deepest consolidation of military power in Xi’s 13 years at the top — and a thinner buffer between the political leader and operational decisions.
“Xi has no rivals that can or dare challenge him either inside the party or in the military,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. In practical terms, he added, the purge means “a lot less capacity for course correction” if Xi chooses a risky path.
Xi’s anti-graft drive has been a hallmark of his rule, casting corruption as an existential threat to Communist Party legitimacy. The PLA was a particular focus. A 2023 paper by the Berlin-based think tank MERICS described a culture where “ranks and promotions were routinely up for sale and bribery was rampant.” But the latest removals suggest the cleanup failed to root out entrenched practices — or that political loyalty now eclipses malfeasance as the decisive metric.
Zhang Youxia’s fall was especially jarring. A “princeling” whose father fought alongside Xi’s father during the Communist revolution, Zhang is one of the PLA’s few combat veterans, having served in China’s clashes with Vietnam. The PLA Daily accused Zhang and Liu of “grave betrayal” and of trampling the principle of “ultimate responsibility resting with the CMC chairman.” The phrasing points to a political or personal breach in Xi’s eyes, said Shanshan Mei, a political scientist at RAND Corporation. “He has crossed the line in Xi’s eyes,” she said. “We just don’t know what that line is.”
Chinese elite politics remains a black box. Rumors of a coup or espionage have circulated since the sackings, but seasoned observers counsel caution. What is clearer is the institutional consequence: a broken chain of command at senior levels, diminished operational experience at the top and fewer figures with the stature to challenge assumptions in a crisis.
That matters most in the Taiwan Strait. U.S. intelligence has assessed that Xi wants the PLA capable of seizing the self-ruled island by 2027. China has intensified military drills and gray-zone pressure around Taiwan in recent weeks. Yet the purge cuts both ways. With fewer trusted lieutenants and a disrupted command, Beijing is “in no rush to start a major war with anybody anytime soon,” Sung said. At the same time, a narrower circle raises the odds of miscalculation if Xi decides to gamble. Without Zhang’s gravitas, there are fewer voices to urge restraint or rethink timelines.
The risks extend beyond Taiwan. Flashpoints run from the South China Sea — where Chinese ships have clashed with Philippine vessels — to the Himalayan border with India, and from the Korean Peninsula to Southeast Asia. “What if something tricky happens during a routine training exercise” in any of these theaters, Mei asked. “Who is going to advise Xi at this point? I am concerned.”
Purges that reach the commanders of nuclear and missile forces elevate the stakes further. “When purges reach the level of senior commanders responsible for nuclear forces, missile units and joint command structures, the implications extend far beyond domestic power consolidation,” said Velina Tchakarova, head of FACE geopolitical risk consultancy in Vienna. “They directly affect crisis management, signaling reliability and escalation control.” Historically, she noted, such internal convulsions correlate “not with restraint, but with higher external risk tolerance, reduced transparency and abrupt policy shifts.”
The timing complicates a notable Western turn toward engagement with Beijing. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited this week, following French President Emmanuel Macron’s trip late last year. Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin led a delegation in early January. Then came Canada’s Mark Carney, who touted a “new strategic partnership” with China and said the relationship fit a “new world order.”
For smaller and middle powers hedging against a more fractious United States, China can appear a stabilizing counterweight. But that premise is under strain. “The implicit assumption that engagement with China offers a calmer, more predictable counterweight no longer holds under current conditions,” Tchakarova said. Beijing’s track record of economic coercion — from punishing Norway after the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo to slapping tariffs on Australia after it called for a COVID-19 probe — also shadow the outreach.
The moral calculus is raw for those scarred by China’s coercive diplomacy. Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat detained for nearly three years after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request, described six months in solitary as “psychological torture.” Watching the latest smiles-and-handshakes was “morally, if not repugnant, then at least uncomfortable,” he told Semafor. On social media, he warned that the pivot by middle powers should “sound alarm bells.” “Seeking refuge with another authoritarian power because Trump is unreliable isn’t strategy,” he wrote. “It’s just a more subtle form of supplication.”
Beijing’s defenders argue that internal discipline campaigns and deterrence signaling are designed to prevent war, not invite it. Even critics acknowledge that a gutted senior command is unlikely to lunge into a major conflict while replacing key figures and reestablishing control. Yet that logic does little to ease fears about brittle decision-making at the very top — or about how a minor confrontation might spiral if channels are thin, trust is low and the leader is insulated from dissenting advice.
Xi set out to harden the system; he has also narrowed it. As China’s military undergoes its most disruptive reshuffle in years, partners and rivals alike face a paradox: near-term caution paired with higher long-term hazard. For governments betting on engagement to buy predictability, the lesson may be to engage with eyes wide open — and diversify their risk.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
