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The sudden removal of China’s highest-ranking general has sparked turmoil in the world’s largest military and left the future of the Central Military Commission uncertain after years of sweeping purges by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The investigation that followed Zhang Youxia — who was vice president Central Military Commission (CMC), the military body that oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with its two million members — leaves Xi almost alone in charge of the army.
Although no one outside the leadership knows for sure what led to the unprecedented crackdown, it raises questions about how the military will operate in the future and what it could mean for regional stability, including China’s views on Taiwan.
“This is a Shakespearean moment in China politics,” said Jonathan Czin, a former senior China analyst at the CIA who spent two years as China director at the US National Security Council.
On January 24, the country’s Ministry of Defense announced that Zhang and Liu Zhenli, another senior general and member of the CMC, were under investigation for “discipline and law violations,” leaving the seven-person body down to two, one of whom is Xi.
The next day, the Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of the armed forces, published an editorial accusing Liu and Zhang of corruption and betraying the “trust and expectation” of the Chinese Communist Party, stressing that “no one, regardless of rank or position, will be spared”.
‘Ruthless with his friends’
If anyone was seemingly immune, it would be Zhang. After all, he and Xi have a long history. Their fathers served together in the Chinese civil war that led to Mao Zedong’s communist forces taking power in 1949. Zhang and Xi, who have known each other since they were young, were also friends and allies.
“It’s one thing to be ruthless with your enemies. It’s another thing to be ruthless with your friends,” said Czin, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, who notes that the only clear message emerging from Zhang’s investigation is that there is “no safe zone” in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign.
While the reasons behind the move are open to speculation, with party machinations notoriously opaque, the move cements Xi in an “unassailable position,” said Ja Ian Chong, assistant professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.
“It will depend a lot more on the top leadership. It will depend a lot more on Xi’s likes and dislikes,” he said.
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has enacted comprehensive reforms of the PLA in order to transform it into a modern force, including the fight against corruption. Zhang was one of the people chosen to lead that transformation.
Recently, 10 Central Committee officials were expelled at the Fourth Plenum of the Communist Party of China in October, most of whom were soldiers.
For many, the investigation into Zhang strikes a different chord than previous purges, given his lifelong ties to the president.
Some China watchers suspect that corruption is not the primary motivation but signals an attempt by Xi to consolidate power, said Kevin Luo, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis who focuses on Chinese and authoritarian politics.
Luo said streamlining the chain of command and ensuring the party has the ability to “command the weapon” is driving the move, further exerting Xi’s own control over all party apparatuses, including the military and political institutions within the party.
“It’s more about maintaining discipline, making sure people are on the same page,” he said.
The Taiwan question
Whatever the motives, the military is undoubtedly dealing with a lot of “uncertainty,” other observers said.
Shanshan Mei, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation think-tank in Washington, DC, who focuses on monitoring the PLA’s leadership and organization, said the latest move would have a “ripple effect throughout the armed forces.”
“This is a blow to (the military’s) morale,” she said, arguing that the purge could halt Xi’s view of Taiwan, given that the military’s command structure has been reshuffled.
Mei said any military movement in Taiwan would not be a good time for China “when you have just made some major disturbances.”
China’s top military leadership is being restructured, reduced to just two members. The move concentrates control of the People’s Liberation Army in just China’s President Xi Jinping and a single army general – and the change is drawing attention from around the world.
Some, like Drew Thompson, a former China specialist at the Pentagon who recently wrote a Substack article in the week he accompanied Zhang on a visit to the US in 2012, say Zhang urged caution in taking the island, given that he was one of only a handful of military leaders who had seen combat, having fought in the Vietnam War.
“I think he was the only active-duty PLA officer who could have given Xi the best, most objective advice on the PLA’s military capabilities, including the PLA’s shortcomings and, most importantly, the human cost of military conflict,” Thompson wrote.
As a result, Zhang’s ouster could be seen as a step in removing that caution.
The Brookings Institution’s Czin said the PLA is large enough that a change in leadership may not affect its operational capability, pointing to the December military exercises around Taiwan after the latest plenum purges.
“It’s a big enough organization that I can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.
The problem is that it is still unclear who would be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the PLA now that Zhang is gone.
WATCH | Xi Jinping is strengthening his power in China:
Chinese President Xi Jinping appears poised to retain his position in an exceptional third term after consolidating power over several years. CBC News takes a closer look at the power dynamics at play and what Xi’s enhanced power could mean for the rest of the world.
