One of them was a general who was leading the Chinese forces massed against Taiwan. Another was an officer who led the People’s Liberation Army’s training department and was praised for modernizing combat training.
A third had long served as a key military aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.These men are among dozens of once-rising senior military officers who have been arrested, fired or disappeared without explanation over the past four years. Their downfall, documented in a study released Tuesday, reveals the astonishing extent of Xi’s campaign to transform the People’s Liberation Army, which culminated last month in the sacking of its top general, Zhang Yuxia.The purge has stripped the military of its most experienced commanders and raised doubts about its readiness to go to war, including over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, according to data compiled by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, a research group in Washington.“In the near term, given the large vacancies, it will be very difficult for China to launch major military campaigns against Taiwan,” Bonnie Lin, director of the center’s China Energy Project, wrote in an assessment of the findings.
“Even below that point, there is evidence that the clearance operations negatively affected Chinese exercises around Taiwan in 2025.”The study estimated that since 2022, about 100 officers in the army’s two highest ranks – general or lieutenant general – have been fired or sidelined. The total includes about 11 officers who were liquidated even after retirement.Those excluded represent about half of the military’s senior leadership, including senior commanders as well as commanders and deputy commanders of central departments and all five military theater regions in China, said M. Taylor Fravel, a professor and expert on China’s military at MIT, who examined the data.Replacing them won’t be easy. The purges have whittled down the pool of candidates with the right mix of skills, experience and strict loyalty to Xi and the Communist Party. An officer must typically have served three to five years at his or her current rank to be considered for a promotion, Fravel said. “Xi purged all these people, and it was clearly framed as their lack of loyalty to Xi and the party,” he said in an interview.
He added: “But he also needs experience to get the army he wants – loyalty and experience as well – and how will he find these people? It will be more difficult now.”The dismissals began gradually, with one senior officer disappearing in 2022. That number rose to 14 officers, who were fired or disappeared, in 2023, and 11 more in 2024. By last year, the purge was a deluge: About 62 officers had been removed, many in the latter half of the year. This year, about 11 officers missed meetings they would normally be expected to attend, suggesting that at least some of them may also be in serious trouble.
Zhang’s downfall may lead to further investigations into officers linked to him.Some dismissed or disappeared officers owe their rise to Xi himself; Others were stars whose credentials marked them out as the future of senior leadership. In the Chinese military, “for every senior officer, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of lower officers whose careers are tied to the senior officer,” said John Culver, a former CIA analyst. “I think this will continue for at least two or three years.” New York Times
