ANALYSIS: Xi’s Purge of Top Military Leaders Reveals Major Crisis Within CCP

Members of the Peoples Liberation Army band file out after the closing session of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, outside The Great Hall of People on October 22, 2022 in Beijing, China. China's Communist Party Congress is concluding today with incumbent President Xi Jinping expected to seal a third term in power. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The recent removal of the top two commanders overseeing China’s nuclear arsenal reveals serious fractures in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s regime and will harm its military modernization, according to analysts.

Last week, Gen. Li Yuchao, commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force, and political commissar Xu Zhongbo, the branch’s second in command, were purged from their posts after having disappeared from public view for months. The reason for their dismissal and their current whereabouts are unknown.

Mr. Xi installed former deputy navy chief Wang Houbin as the new commander on July 31, while Xu Xisheng, an air force officer and member of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) elite Central Committee, was promoted to political commissar.

Notably, both men come from outside the branch and have no experience in the Rocket Force, the arm of the PLA responsible for the country’s nuclear arsenal and ballistic missiles. Analysts say their installation will likely jeopardize the regime’s warfighting ability, as it increasingly seeks to challenge the United States’ and Russia’s nuclear forces.

Gen. Li and Mr. Xu were among several leaders in the Rocket Force to have gone missing in recent months and were presumed to be under investigation, signaling a wholesale purge of the branch’s top brass.

These include Lt. Gen. Liu Guangbin, deputy commander of the Rocket Force, and Lt. Gen. Zhang Zhenzhong, the branch’s former deputy commander, according to Germany-based sinologist Frank Lehberger.

Besides the disappearances, the death of Gen. Wu Guohua, 66, former deputy commander of the force, on July 4, which was only confirmed by Chinese state media in late July, has led many to speculate that the purges were because of corruption or the leaking of military secrets.

Three weeks after his death, Chinese state media reported that Gen. Wu had died of an unspecified illness. His death was earlier reported by overseas Chinese-language media, fueling speculation that the general had killed himself.

Disappearances and Deaths

The purges came at a time of much upheaval within the opaque CCP.

“There is more than meets the eye in the recent changes in the PLA Rocket Force, especially at a time when the Chinese foreign minister has disappeared,” Claude Arpi, a French historian and expert on Tibet based in India, told The Epoch Times.

The previous Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, disappeared for a month before being officially removed from his post, without explanation.

Mr. Lehberger also noted the suspicious circumstances surrounding Gen. Wu’s death.

“No reason was given why his death was kept a secret for three weeks. In late July, he was given an uncharacteristically low-key funeral, his obituary omitting his status as a high-level member of the CCP. A humiliation, basically. No reason was provided for this either,” Mr. Lehberger said.

And Gen. Wu wasn’t the only high-ranking military official to have died earlier this year, only to have his death belatedly confirmed by the regime.

Gen. Wang Shaojun, 67, former head of the Central Guard Bureau died from an undisclosed illness in Beijing on April 26, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on July 27.

Gen. Wang had previously served as the chief bodyguard to Mr. Xi and other high-ranking CCP members.

“No reason was given why his death was kept a secret for three months,” Mr. Lehberger said, adding that the case of the two generals was “something unprecedented” in the history of the communist regime.

Corruption

Nishakant Ojha, an India-based geopolitical analyst, said he believes the purge of the Rocket Force’s entire command is linked to a crackdown on corruption.

“The Rocket Force may have failed to meet certain high-level goals,” Mr. Ojha told The Epoch Times, adding that may have prompted an investigation into where the money went.

A July 28 report by South China Morning Post, citing unnamed sources, said several top PLA Rocket Force generals have been investigated for corruption by the military watchdog for months, including the force’s current commander, Li Yuchao, and deputies Zhang Zhenzhong and Liu Guangbin.

Mr. Ojha likened the situation to the corruption probe of China’s state-backed semiconductor investment fund, known as “Big Fund,” this past year that led to the detention of multiple top executives, including the fund’s former president, on graft charges.

Military vehicles carrying hypersonic DF-17 missiles travel past Tiananmen Square during a military parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. Jason Lee/Reuters

Intelligence Leak

He Qinglian, a prominent U.S.-based Chinese economist and commentator, thinks the shake-up was the result of a leaking of military secrets that came to light when the U.S. Air Force think tank published a 255-page report on the PLA Rocket Force (pdf) on Oct. 24, 2022.

The report described the organizational structure of the Rocket Force, a branch known for its secrecy, with a remarkable level of detail, prompting analysts including Ms. He to conclude it was leaked by senior officials of the force.

“It is not too difficult to grasp this kind of information,” she said, noting that U.S. intelligence services routinely recruit Chinese informants.

“What’s more, the CCP has always strictly dealt with this kind of espionage that undermines national security–in line with the principle of ‘killing a thousand rather than letting one go,’” she said, referring to a quote by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Ms. He said she’s reminded of previous incidents such as the 2010 purge, during which the CCP dismantled a CIA espionage operation inside China by executing or imprisoning dozens of informants over two years.

Multiple Factors

Some analysts have noted that Mr. Xi’s replacement of the Rocket Force command occurred not long after the Russian Wagner mutiny of late June that was directed against President Vladimir Putin.

Lehberger called Mr. Putin a close personal friend of Mr. Xi’s and said the Russian mutiny is believed to have shaken the Chinese leader to the core.

While this is unconfirmed, Mr. Lehberger noted that “the peculiar timing and the haste with which the replacement inside the PLA has taken place” lends some credence to the speculation, especially taking into account that Mr. Xi has likely faced coup threats during his tenure.

“Hence, some commentators dub the whole affair as ‘China’s Wagner moment,’” he said.

The Rocket Force, the PLA’s newest branch, created by Mr. Xi during his sweeping military reforms in 2015, oversees precision missiles that are aimed at stationary and moving targets anywhere in Taiwan, Japan, India, U.S. territories in the Pacific such as Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii, and the continental United States, according to Mr. Lehberger.

“Most (non-nuclear) precision missiles controlled by the [Rocket Forces] could hypothetically also be targeted by hypothetical future Chinese coup plotters at Xi Jinping himself. Thus becoming hypothetically a sure and error-proof way [of] eliminating Xi as China’s leader ... very much unlike the botched coup by Wagner mercenaries, only armed with regular firearms, who were targeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow,” he said.

Mr. Lehberger also said the CCP’s recent messaging targeting the PLA revealed the causes behind the purge.

Mr. Xi’s speeches since July 24 and the various editorials published in CCP’s state media highlight four main problems in the military, “lack of ethics among the PLA, lack of supervision of the PLA, formation of factions inside the PLA, and active divulging of military top-secrets by the PLA,” he said.

The first two factors can be linked to corruption and various forms of ethical misconduct, and the latter two are serious political and treasonous offenses that are directly threatening the survival of the CCP regime and Mr. Xi personally, according to the sinologist.

“These four points corroborate my assessment that this whole affair is not only due to corruption or behavior or ethical misconduct, but that Xi’s status as autocratic leader of China is also threatened,” Mr. Lehberger said.

Effect on PLA’s Warfighting Ability

The appointment of two outsiders to lead the PLA Rocket Force has drawn attention from analysts.

“All this shows that Xi Jinping has not only a huge problem of discipline within the PLA but also has serious problems finding officers that he can trust,” Mr. Arpi, the India-based historian, said.

Mr. Lehberger said that Gen. Wang’s appointment is not only peculiar but also detrimental to the Rocket Force’s warfighting capability.

He cited Gen. Wang’s official biography, which states that he started his career as a low-level officer in the PLA Navy’s Air Force Detachment. Gen. Wang was more like a bureaucrat who never flew airplanes at the time, thus gaining no flying experience.

Later, he became an officer at the staff headquarters of the PLA Navy. As such, he was also never involved in a command of a warship and therefore lacked practical experience.

“Wang was only commended for being a loyal, docile, and hardworking ... officer in staff headquarters. Paradoxically it was those qualities, coupled with his total lack of technical or professional know-how, which did play a crucial role for Xi picking Admiral Wang Houbin as new [Rocket Force] commander,” Mr. Lehberger said.

The general’s lack of relevant experience will be especially damaging to the Rocket Force because, according to Mr. Lehberger, the force is more important than other branches and must be led by a commanding officer with specialized knowledge of ballistic missiles.

“Moreover, the main adversary of the [Rocket Force] is the formidable U.S. Strategic Nuclear Force, which forces the [Rocket Force] not to commit any kind of amateurish mistake with possibly catastrophic repercussions for ... the CCP,” the expert said.

“A novice and outsider like Gen. Wang Houbin as head of the [Rocket Force] will therefore only elicit angry contempt and insubordination from the officer corps and the rank and file, in turn increasing the suspicions and paranoia of Xi,” he added, describing this as a “vicious cycle.”

The massive shake-up of the forces that Mr. Xi personally created indicates that the Chinese leader’s reforms of the military are facing serious and unprecedented trouble, according to Mr. Lehberger.

“This is corroborated by the fact that apart from a handful of high PLA officers whom he knows personally for decades, Xi never trusts anyone else inside the PLA officer corps; he is visibly uncomfortable when meeting with PLA officers or with ordinary rank and file,” he said.

Mr. Xi created both the Rocket Forces and the PLA Strategic Support Force, responsible for psychological, cyber, and information warfare, in December 2015.

“Xi staffed them with handpicked officers, carefully vetted for their loyalty to him personally,” Mr. Lehberger said.