China’s military is going to war against itself

In what could be the most dangerous developments in the world today, the Chinese military is tearing itself apart.

Xi Jinping has been purging officers for more than a decade. But other officers, it appears, are now purging Xi’s loyalists. The main propaganda organ of the People’s Liberation Army is printing pieces openly criticizing his rule.

The Chinese military is apparently embroiled in its worst crisis since Marshal Lin Biao died in a mysterious plane crash in 1971. Lin fled either after a failed coup attempt or after being blamed for one.

Gen. He Weidong, the number three-ranked uniformed officer, was reportedly detained on March 11, after the end of Beijing’s major political event of the year, the so-called Two Sessions. So far, there is no confirmation of the initial report on this by citizen journalist Zhao Lanjian.  

“Gen. He was instrumental in Xi’s earlier purges in the military, so his disappearance, if confirmed, could indicate a great threat to Xi’s authority,” Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me. 

The news of the disappearance of He, the second vice chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission and former commander of the all-important Eastern Theater Command, has been accompanied by other unconfirmed reports last week of sackings of senior officers. For instance, Gen. Zhao Keshi, a former member of the commission, may have been formally arrested. 

The possible detentions of He and Zhao follow a Financial Times report of other demotions immediately before the Two Sessions, the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. 

Journalist Jennifer Zeng, in a March 13 X post asked if “factional struggle within the military entered a new phase?” 

The answer is almost certainly “yes.” 

Xi Jinping, since being named general secretary of the Communist Party in November 2012, has purged officers — ostensibly for “corruption” — and restructured the People’s Liberation Army. Both moves resulted in his taking firm control of the military.  

Yet two recent waves of purges — the first beginning in 2023 and ending in the middle of last year and the second beginning in November of last year — have targeted officers loyal to Xi in two factions, the Shaanxi Gang and the Fujian Clique.  

There are two likely explanations for the recent targeting of Xi loyalists. First, Xi could have become a Stalin-like paranoid and is taking down people he previously selected. Second, Xi’s enemies might be removing Xi’s officers.  

Of the two, the second explanation is more likely. Why? Because while Xi loyalists were being removed, PLA Daily, the Chinese military’s main propaganda organ, ran a series of articles praising “collective leadership,” a direct rejection of Xi’s continual calls for unity and centralization of control.  

These articles, which began appearing last July, were written by those aligned with the top-ranked uniformed officer, Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Gen. Zhang Youxia. The propaganda pieces could not have appeared if Xi were in complete control of the military.  

“What is starting to become purge season around the regime’s Two Sessions should be a warning that all is not well in China,” Blaine Holt, a retired Air Force general, told me this month.  

“The extraordinary successive purging of such a high proportion of senior military officials suggests that this is more than just rooting out of corruption and associated ills,” Burton points out. “Severe dissatisfaction with Xi’s rule by significant factions of the Chinese Communist Party and of the Party’s People’s Liberation Army suggests that the current leadership of China faces an existential threat.” 

Xi’s weakening hold over the military, which reports to the Communist Party and not to the Chinese state, complicates the situation. Whoever is controlling the purges — Xi or his political enemies — the Chinese military does not look either stable or loyal to China’s paramount leader.  

The spate of confirmed disappearances of senior officers since 2023 is unusual, and the new rumors are especially troubling. Even if all the fresh rumors are untrue — possible — the fact that they are circulating tells us that there are elements trying to destabilize the Chinese ruler.  

A Xi under siege could decide to lash out. As Holt points out, “Danger to the regime could have global consequences as Xi and the [Chinese Communist Party] consider options to save themselves.” 

There is a lot we do not know, so anything can happen at this moment. The Chinese regime, as it goes to war against itself, can now take the world by surprise.  

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America” and “The Coming Collapse of China.”