One of them was a general who commanded Chinese troops in the war against Taiwan. The other is an officer who once led the training branch of the People’s Liberation Army and was praised for modernizing combat training. The third man has long served as top military aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.The men are among dozens of once-rising senior military officers who have been detained, fired or disappeared from view without explanation over the past four years. A study released on Tuesday chronicling their downfall reveals the alarming extent of Xi Jinping’s campaign to overhaul the People’s Liberation Army, which last month ousted top PLA general Zhang Youxia.The purge has stripped the military of its most experienced commanders and raised doubts about its readiness for war, including over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, according to data compiled by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based institute.“In the short term, it will be extremely difficult for China to launch a large-scale military operation against Taiwan given the large openings,” Bonny Lin, director of the center’s China Power Program, wrote in an assessment of the findings. “Even below this threshold, there is evidence that purge operations are having a negative impact on China’s exercises around Taiwan in 2025.”Research estimates that about 100 officers in the military’s top two ranks (general or lieutenant general) have been dismissed or sidelined since 2022. The tally includes about 11 officers who were purged even after retirement.M Taylor Fravel, a professor and expert on China’s military affairs at MIT who examined the data, said those eliminated accounted for about half of the military’s senior leadership, including top commanders as well as leaders and deputy leaders of central departments and all five of China’s military districts.Replacing them is not easy. The purge has reduced the pool of candidates with the skills, experience and unwavering loyalty to Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. Flavell said an officer typically must also serve three to five years at his or her current rank before being considered for promotion. “Xi Jinping purged all these people, and obviously it was blamed on their lack of loyalty to Xi Jinping and the party,” he said in an interview. “But he also needs expertise to have the troops he wants – loyalty and expertise – and how is he going to find those people? Now that’s going to be much more difficult.”The removals started small, with a senior official missing in 2022. By 2023, the number of senior officials dismissed or missing increased to 14, and by 2024 a further 11 were added. By last year, the purge had become a deluge: some 62 people were removed from their posts, many in the second half of the year. This year, about 11 officials have been absent from meetings they would normally attend, suggesting that at least some of them may be in serious trouble. Zhang’s downfall is likely to trigger more investigations into officials linked to him.Some of the dismissed or missing officials attribute their rise to Xi Jinping himself; others are stars whose seniority marked their future as the top command. Former CIA analyst John Culver said that in the Chinese military, “for every senior officer, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of junior officers whose careers are closely tied to the senior officers.” “I think this will continue for at least two or three years.” The New York Times
