Xi's Military Purge Reveals an Impatient Leader in a Hurry

Twelve years into his rule, Xi Jinping just delivered his most dramatic military shakeup yet—and it should worry anyone paying attention to China's trajectory.

On January 24, China's Defense Ministry announced that the country's top uniformed officer, General Zhang Youxia, and chief of staff, General Liu Zhenli, were under investigation for "serious violations of party discipline and law"—regime code for corruption. Western reports even suggest Zhang leaked nuclear secrets to the United States.

The terse announcement masked the biggest political earthquake to hit the People's Liberation Army (PLA) since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

The Systematic Dismantling of Military Leadership

This wasn't a sudden decision. The seeds were planted at October's Communist Party plenum, which formalized the removal of other Central Military Commission (CMC) heavyweights and left their seats vacant—a puzzling move that now makes perfect sense. It telegraphed that more was coming.

Xi's latest purge has touched every corner of the PLA, claiming all but one top officer over recent years. The 2023 Rocket Force dismissals, linked to corruption in nuclear force expansion, were followed by the purge of two defense ministers who previously commanded the Rocket Force.

Many analysts interpret these purges as evidence of Xi's weak grip on the military, or as factional infighting with Xi as a passive observer. But the evisceration of the entire CMC offers solid evidence that these frameworks miss the point entirely.

The Control Freak's Master Plan

The assumption that Xi follows the same civil-military rules as his post-Mao predecessors—treating the PLA as a hermetically sealed kingdom requiring careful bargaining—fundamentally misreads the man and his methods.

Xi has systematically dismantled the old system. Early in his tenure, he announced sweeping changes to PLA command structure, breaking institutional networks that had thwarted previous reform efforts. He then formalized the "CMC chair responsibility system," cementing party control over the military.

In 2016, he became the PLA's commander-in-chief, claiming direct operational command instead of just administrative control. At the 2017 Party Congress, he cut the CMC from an unwieldy 11 members to seven, concentrating authority. The final insult came last October when he made the PLA's top disciplinarian a CMC vice chair, smashing the fiction of a self-policing military.

Zhang Youxia might have thought that was a bridge too far, but he's now the last general standing—which only rubs more salt in the wound.

Why Now? The Impatient Emperor

The most revealing aspect isn't the purge itself, but its timing. Xi's obsession with stability at home, which the PLA ultimately underwrites, means he wouldn't have undertaken such a disruptive shakeup unless he felt pressed for time.

The signal feature of this purge is Xi's intensifying impatience with the PLA's inability to obey his order to "fight and win wars." His success in forcing President Trump into a truce last year validated his political and economic program, giving Xi the confidence that now is the time to double down on his vision.

This time, however, his approach won't repeat the brash "wolf warrior" diplomacy of his early years, which precipitated a global immune response. Instead, he'll focus on building a fortress economy and ensuring the PLA can deliver if military action becomes unavoidable.

The Taiwan Calculation

Foreigners might be tempted to judge that chaos inside the PLA means military action against Taiwan is off the table. That would be a dangerous miscalculation.

The purge actually reveals Xi's growing frustration with military readiness, not weakness. China has made significant progress in expanding its suite of options for coercive military force. Xi's impatience suggests he wants those capabilities ready sooner rather than later.

His determination to achieve "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" shouldn't be doubted. The purges signal his renewed commitment to that ambition, backed by a military he's reshaping to serve his timeline, not theirs.

The Dangerous Logic of Acceleration

Xi wants stability with Washington in the immediate term, but his internal projects—building economic resilience and military capability—will make China a more formidable competitor by decade's end. The question isn't whether Xi has long-term ambitions, but whether his growing impatience will lead to miscalculations.

A leader who systematically removes his top military commanders while demanding they prepare for war is either supremely confident in his control or dangerously disconnected from military realities. Given Xi's track record, it's likely the former—which might be even more concerning.