Military purge gives Xi total control of Chinese army

China’s highest-ranked general has been placed under investigation for “serious violations” of discipline in a broadside that leaves Xi Jinping in total control of the armed forces.

Zhang Youxia, the operational leader of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), had survived several rounds of military purges and was thought close to untouchable as a childhood friend of the president.

The 75-year-old is also a member of the ruling politburo and one of the only Chinese military commanders with combat experience, having fought in the country’s 1979 war against Vietnam.

His dismissal marks the high point of Mr Xi’s years-long effort to root out corruption and disloyalty within the top ranks of the military.

It is also likely to delay any attempt to seize Taiwan by force, analysts told The Telegraph.

On Saturday, China’s ministry of defence announced in a brief statement that General Zhang was being investigated for “serious violations of discipline and law”, a euphemism for corruption, alongside Liu Zhenli, another high-ranking military official.

Both men had sat on the Central Military Commission (CMC), which oversees the army’s strategy and operations, while ensuring it follows the orders of the ruling Communist Party.

As senior vice-chairman of the CMC, General Zhang had been thought of as central to the effort to modernise the armed forces and make them combat-ready.

Mr Xi has doubled China’s defence budget since taking office in an effort to make Beijing a “world-class” military power by 2049.

According to US intelligence, he has ordered the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by next year.

In a sign of the president’s unhappiness with progress towards these goals, nine senior generals were fired in October, including He Weidong, a former junior CMC vice-chairman.

“The [PLA] purge is really just complete,” said Lyle Morris, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s a complete cleaning house... the biggest purge in Chinese history since 1949.”

One result is to leave the PLA in “disarray” and delay any move for Taiwan, Mr Morris added.

“We can all sleep soundly for years,” he said. “There is no way they could pull off the Taiwan contingency with no senior leaders in charge.”

Others cautioned against complacency over the threat to the self-governing island claimed by Beijing.

“If this is a final part of a generational decapitation of PLA leadership, the younger, replacement generation may be real wolf warriors, so assuming this apparent chaos inside the PLA means the risks to Taiwan are lower may be risky,” said Bill Bishop, who runs the blog Sinocism.

The CMC has been reduced to its smallest size in history. There are now only two members, including Mr Xi and Zhang Shengmin, the military’s anti-corruption watchdog, who was promoted to CMC vice-chair in October. Every one of the six uniformed commanders appointed to the body in 2022 has now been removed.

Speculation soared over the fate of Generals Zhang and Liu on Tuesday after they were absent from a televised party seminar, with such disappearances often a sign of an individual being removed from their post.

General Zhang has been accused of corruption, including failing to control his own family members, one source familiar with the case told the South China Morning Post. They added that he had failed to report promptly to the party’s leadership about problems.

Mr Xi’s purges of the PLA were “surgically” targeted in his first term, Christopher K Johnson, a former CIA analyst who follows Chinese politics, said.

Fearful of inviting blowback, the president avoided active-duty generals and those most needed in the event of a hot war over Taiwan, such as the Rocket Forces.

But he now appears to believe the “whole apple cart is rotten” with generals “lining their own pockets [rather than] paying attention to the mission”.

Beijing is capable of pumping out an array of impressive, hi-tech weaponry, including aircraft carriers, rail guns and a hypersonic glide vehicle that “even the smartest defence people” in the US government cannot replicate, said Mr Johnson, who is president of the China Strategies Group, a consulting firm.

But they “fall down” on the “software” of being able to conduct large-scale military manoeuvres combining the air force, navy and ground troops.

Some Western analysts and commentators on social media have speculated about a rift between Mr Xi and the PLA, interpreting the purges as a sign of anxiety over a potential coup.

But the drastic moves showed strength rather than weakness, The Telegraph was told.

“This is not an indicator of flaws in Xi’s power over the PLA,” said Mr Morris. “For him to do this shows he has a lot of support in the party and is fully in charge.”

Mr Johnson added: “If you’re worried about a coup, you take everyone out in one surgical strike. You don’t have a rolling purge of 24 months.

“It’s the Night of the Long Knives, not the two years.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]