China’s supreme leader demands that no soldier harbor disloyalty to the Party as he strips the armed forces of any leadership independent from himself
No Hiding Place for Disloyalty
On March 7, 2026, speaking at a plenary meeting of the People’s Liberation Army delegation during China’s annual Two Sessions, Xi Jinping delivered a message that was equal parts demand and threat. “There must be no one in the military who harbors disloyalty to the Party,” he said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. And then: “There must be no hiding place for corrupt individuals.”
The remarks, reported by CBS News and confirmed by multiple international correspondents in Beijing, came as China’s legislature opened in the shadow of an unprecedented purge of the People’s Liberation Army. The military campaign has already claimed the heads of two CMC vice chairmen, more than a hundred senior officers since 2022, and entire senior leaderships of major service branches including the Rocket Force, the Navy, and the Air Force.
The Scale of the Military Purge
The numbers are staggering. In the days immediately surrounding the Two Sessions, the National People’s Congress dismissed nine military officers, including two officials from the Central Military Commission itself. Three generals were removed from the top political advisory body, the CPPCC. The CMC, which once had a vice chairman structure designed to provide at least nominal collective oversight of the military, has been reduced to two members: Xi Jinping as chairman and newly promoted Zhang Shengmin as his only deputy.
Analysts who track Chinese civil-military relations say the structural effect of the purge is to remove any institutional buffer between Xi and direct command of the armed forces. In previous decades, the CMC vice chairman system served as a form of collective check, with senior generals whose careers and reputations were distinct from the supreme leader playing meaningful roles in military planning and personnel decisions. That system no longer exists.
Political Loyalty Over Professional Competence
Xi’s demand for “political loyalty” is not rhetorical. It reflects a deliberate decision to prioritize ideological alignment over professional military competence in the promotion and retention of officers. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies documented in a February 2026 report that the PLA purge has already measurably degraded the military’s operational capacity. The two major exercises China conducted around Taiwan in 2025 were assessed as hastily organized and lacking comprehensive planning — a direct consequence of the turnover and uncertainty at the top of the command structure.
When the PLA launched its Joint Sword exercise near Taiwan in May 2024, it was mobilized and executed within three to four days. By contrast, the Strait Thunder exercise of April 2025 took 19 days to organize, and the Justice Mission exercise of December 2025 required 12 days. The trend is in the wrong direction for an institution that Xi publicly bills as a world-class fighting force.
A Campaign That Also Eliminates Rivals
The official framing of the anti-corruption campaign presents it as a virtuous cleansing of a military tainted by graft — and the corruption, to be clear, is real. Multiple generals have admitted to taking bribes, selling promotions, and awarding contracts to favored suppliers. The PLA’s expansion of the Rocket Force, once considered the crown jewel of China’s nuclear modernization program, was found to have been riddled with procurement fraud that may have compromised the reliability of missile systems.
But analysts including those at the Jamestown Foundation have argued persuasively that the campaign serves a dual purpose. It removes genuinely corrupt officers, yes, but it also eliminates officers whose loyalty Xi does not fully trust — including those with deep personal ties to previous CMC vice chairmen or to faction networks that predate Xi’s rise to power. The two functions are not mutually exclusive, but conflating them produces a political outcome that goes far beyond anti-corruption: it consolidates one man’s personal control over the most powerful military in Asia.
What This Means for Regional Stability
A PLA that is uncertain in its command structure, focused on demonstrating political loyalty rather than operational excellence, and led by officers whose primary qualification is personal allegiance to Xi Jinping is a more dangerous PLA, not a more capable one. Unpredictable militaries make miscalculation more likely. Officers afraid to report bad news upward, or to recommend restraint when escalation is politically popular, are officers who create conditions for catastrophic accidents.
For the people of Taiwan, for Hong Kong, and for every democratic nation in the Indo-Pacific region, the lesson of Xi’s military transformation is clear: the greatest risk may not be a confident, capable PLA launching a carefully planned operation. It may be a fearful, hollowed-out institution responding to a crisis with improvised aggression because the institutional mechanisms for measured response have been purged alongside the generals who ran them.
Sin Yu Mak
Business & Consumer Affairs Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: sinyu.mak@appledaily.uk
Sin Yu Mak is a business and consumer affairs journalist with expertise in market regulation, consumer rights, and small enterprise reporting. She completed her journalism education at a respected Chinese journalism institution, where she trained in economic reporting, data literacy, and ethical standards.
Her professional experience includes reporting for Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese newspapers on consumer protection, corporate practices, retail trends, and financial transparency. Sin Yu’s work emphasizes accurate interpretation of financial data and regulatory frameworks, supported by expert commentary and verified documentation.
She has operated in fast-paced newsroom settings where financial misinformation can cause real harm, giving her strong practical experience in verification and clarity. Editors value her ability to translate technical information into accessible, fact-based reporting.
Sin Yu’s authority is reinforced by consistent publication within reputable media organizations and compliance with editorial review processes. At Apple Daily UK, she delivers trustworthy business journalism rooted in evidence, professional discipline, and public-interest reporting.
