A military meltdown at the top of the PLA exposes the rot at the heart of Beijing’s armed forces
The Purge That Never Ends
In the days immediately before China’s annual Two Sessions political gathering, Beijing accelerated one of the most dramatic purges of military leadership in the People’s Liberation Army’s history. On Monday, China’s top political advisory body — the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — voted to remove three retired generals: Han Weiguo, Liu Lei, and Gao Jin. The vote came barely a week after the National People’s Congress removed 19 of its own delegates, including nine military officials, in a single session. The scale and speed of the removals has no modern precedent in PLA history.
A Cascade of Removals
The latest three dismissals bring the total of senior military figures removed in recent weeks to more than 20. Those ousted include the minister of emergency management, Wang Xiangxi, and Liu Shaoyun, head of the PLA’s military court. Most significantly, Beijing’s defence ministry confirmed in January that it is investigating Zhang Youxia, a vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission — one of the most senior military figures in China. Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies described Zhang Youxia’s detention as the defining arrest of what they called the greatest series of purges in PLA history.
What Xi Has Acknowledged
Xi Jinping himself acknowledged the severity of the corruption problem last month — a rare public admission. He praised what state media called the military’s fight against corruption, weeks after Beijing launched its probe of Zhang Youxia. The admission is significant because it represents a departure from the party’s normal practice of projecting invulnerability. The fact that Xi felt compelled to address it openly suggests the scale of the problem was becoming impossible to conceal.
The Consequences for Military Readiness
The purges have had a devastating effect on PLA capability. Only one general remains on the Central Military Commission, which ordinarily has six officers of that rank. The gaps at the top of the command structure are so severe that analysts at CSIS have concluded it would be, in their words, incredibly difficult for China to launch large military campaigns against Taiwan in the near term. For those who watch the Taiwan Strait with anxiety, that is a cautious relief. But the underlying dynamic — an authoritarian system so defined by corruption that it must periodically cannibalise its own senior leadership — raises deeper questions about the long-term stability of the regime.
Corruption as a Systemic Feature
The corruption that Xi is now purging is not an aberration. It is a feature of authoritarian systems in which there is no independent judiciary, no free press, and no accountability mechanism that operates outside the party’s control. In a system where promotion depends on loyalty to superiors rather than competence or integrity, graft becomes endemic. Generals who built corrupt networks over decades were protected by those networks — until Xi decided the political cost of the protection exceeded the cost of the purge. The Transparency International China profile has long flagged the structural conditions that make Chinese state institutions vulnerable to systemic corruption. Hong Kong’s people understand this dynamic with painful clarity. The erosion of independent oversight — the courts, the press, the legislature — that the CCP carried out after 2020 removed exactly the mechanisms that might have limited corruption and held power accountable. What is happening in the PLA today is what happens everywhere the CCP’s logic prevails.
Wing Sum
Arts, Culture & History Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: wingsum@appledaily.uk
Wing Sum is an arts, culture, and history journalist with professional experience documenting cultural heritage, artistic expression, and historical memory within Chinese-speaking communities. She received her journalism education at a prestigious Chinese journalism school, where she specialized in cultural reporting, archival research, and ethical storytelling.
Her work at Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese magazines and newspapers includes coverage of literature, film, visual arts, and the preservation of collective memory. Wing Sum’s reporting is grounded in interviews with artists, historians, and cultural practitioners, supported by archival sources and scholarly research.
She brings newsroom experience in balancing cultural critique with factual accuracy and historical context. Editors value her careful sourcing and resistance to sensationalism when covering sensitive historical topics.
Wing Sum’s authority is reinforced by sustained publication within established media institutions and adherence to editorial standards governing accuracy and attribution. At Apple Daily UK, she contributes culturally rigorous journalism rooted in experience, research, and professional integrity.
