Over the past year, China’s President Xi Jinping has undertaken two waves of purges of high-ranking military leaders from the People’s Liberation Army.
The first wave targeted the PLA Rocket Force, responsible for China’s strategic missile arsenal. This resulted in the June 2024 expulsion of former Defence Ministers General Wei Fenghe and General Li Shangfu from the Chinese Communist Party for violating “political discipline”.
The second wave, beginning in November 2024, has seen other senior members of the Central Military Commission (CMC) such as Admiral Miao Hua, Defence Minister Dong Jun and now CMC Vice Chairman General He Weidong placed under investigation.
It’s tempting, as some have speculated, to assume that these purges indicate a challenge to Xi Jinping’s power over the military or power struggles between PLA “factions”. But what evidence is there that distinct “factions” exist and that they work against the political authority and interests of the “core leader”?
Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, “factions” within the CCP have been variously identified as based on clientelism, institutional-bureaucratic identities and interests, or informal “social networks”.
In the PLA context, clientelist and professional relations can be seen in linkages between Xi and members of the so-called “Shaanxi Gang”, including Xi’s connections as a “princeling” to CMC Vice Chairman General Zhang Youxia. It is also evident in the “Fujian clique”, made up of PLA officers whose careers overlapped with Xi’s time as governor of Fujian between 1999 and 2002, such as CMC Vice Chairman He Weidong. Yet such connections have apparently not insulated He Weidong, for instance, from Xi’s displeasure.
The remaining puzzle, then, concerns the apparent purging of men specifically promoted by and tied to Xi.
Institutional-bureaucratic interests, too, provide only partial insights. Victor Shih has argued that leaders of institutionalised authoritarian regimes – such as those of a Leninist nature – have substantial power to “reshuffle the top officers of the military in order to maximise their objective at the moment” and that “one can get a sense of the dictator’s main objective by examining the characteristics of the officers holding senior positions at the moment”. Shih and a number of other scholars of the PLA have suggested that the promotion of major figures in the PLA under Xi, on balance, has not been driven by “factional” alignment but rather by Xi’s emphasis on enhancing the preparedness and warfighting capabilities of the PLA. Following this logic, the purging of figures such as He Weidong and Admiral Miao Hua might reflect a judgement by Xi that these leaders have failed in what has been identified as their most pressing mission.
The recent reorganisation of the PLA whereby the Strategic Support Force (SSF) has been replaced by a new Information Support Force (ISF) directly under Xi’s control can also be seen in this light. It suggests that China is responding to one of the perceived lessons of the failed Russian invasion of Ukraine by emphasising the centrality of dominating the information environment for the conduct of offensive warfare.
The remaining puzzle, then, concerns the apparent purging of men specifically promoted by and tied to Xi.
Appreciation of what Wu Guoguang has called the “Stalin logic” of Xi’s approach to “elite circulation” makes this more explicable. Not only has Xi, like Stalin, targeted real and imagined opponents within the regime (such as Zhou Yongkang), but once his position was consolidated he has turned on allies and proteges alike in order to reinforce discipline, demonstrate his authoritative role atop the Party-state, and provide scapegoats for enduring governance problems. Each of these elements converge to make the “further consolidation of power” in the hands of the leader “necessary and more desirable for better governance”.
The recent purges suggest the consolidation of this logic and reflect the institutional and ideological dominance of Xi rather than any weakening of his power. Indeed, historical precedents within the CCP show that purges can consolidate authority rather than diminish it. In this sense, Xi through his repeated campaigns against ill-discipline and corruption within the Party-state, including the PLA, has simply reinforced its Leninist nature resulting in an increasingly centralised and personalised regime at the highest levels.
