Loyalty or defeat: How Xi shapes China’s military

In October 2025, the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee (CC) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was held. At the meeting, personnel changes drew more attention than economic policy, with ten CC members and four alternate members expelled from the party, nine of whom were former high-ranking military officials.

Shortly before the meeting began, China’s Ministry of National Defence announced that He Weidong — the second-highest-ranking military official and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) — and Miao Hua, another CMC member, had been removed from the party and the military for their involvement in massive corruption. He and Miao are known to have been Chinese President Xi Jinping’s closest confidants since Xi’s days in Fujian. Zhang Shengmin, a member of the CMC, was promoted to vice chairman to succeed He.

Against this backdrop, around the time of the fourth plenum, social media buzzed with speculation about a potential confrontation between Xi and the first-ranked vice chairman of the CMC, Zhang Youxia — a perceived decline in Xi’s authority, and even his possible downfall. In reality, these claims were largely attempts to profit from the “attention economy” through video streaming or to spread disinformation serving particular political agendas.

According to leading scholars, analysts and diplomats specialising in Chinese politics, Xi still maintains a solid power base and firm authority. I share this view. I believe one should not overlook Xi’s personal motivation to sever ties with long-serving military confidants. His deep concern is that military corruption undermines the military’s combat effectiveness, potentially leading to defeat in future wars.

For Xi, corruption is not merely about the amount of money involved. The problem lies in the political function of corruption itself — namely, that it sparks factionalism and serves as proof of loyalty to faction bosses, ultimately leading to insubordination and defiance against Xi himself as chairman of the CMC.

The purge of the Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou factions during Xi’s first term was significant because it eliminated a military faction through anti-corruption measures, enabling Xi to personally reclaim the power to appoint and dismiss senior officers — authority that had previously rested with factional bosses. 

Given Xi’s relentless criticism of military factions, he will most likely never tolerate the formation of factions within the military by anyone other than himself, even if they are his trusted associates. Some researchers have suggested that the purging of He, Miao and others may have been due to their attempt to expand their influence within the military by forming their own factions, rather than an attempt to challenge Xi’s power.

Professor Wang Hsin-hsien of National Chengchi University in Taiwan argued that the purge of the He and Miao factions did not signal a power grab by Zhang Youxia. If Zhang had sought to seize control, Liu Zhenli — a member of the army branch aligned with him — would most likely have succeeded He Weidong. Instead, Zhang Shengmin of the PLA Rocket Force took the post, suggesting no factional manoeuvring by Zhang.

However, Xi’s criticism of the Guo and Xu factions differs significantly from his criticism of the He and Miao factions. The former was a power struggle over leadership of the party and the military, while the latter stemmed from a concern that the formation of factions within the military would lead to a decline in its combat effectiveness.

In 2014, marking the 120th anniversary of the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Xi identified widespread corruption within the military and the promotion of unqualified personnel as contributing factors to the defeat. He said, “Several factors contributed to the Qing government’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, but the first was corruption, the second was poor personnel management, and the third was a lack of crisis awareness.”

In Xi’s political logic, corruption triggers factionalism within the military, which, combined with rampant nepotism and the buying and selling of official posts, leads to the promotion of incompetent generals and a decline in overall combat capability — ultimately increasing the risk of defeat in war, including any use of force to unify Taiwan. To Xi, this is a single, continuous process.

If the CCP’s anti-corruption campaign is intended to strengthen Xi’s leadership and legitimise his rule, the military must, above all, maintain and enhance its combat capabilities while reinforcing Xi’s personal authority.

The downfall of He and Miao was not due to political infighting between Xi and other senior military officials. Xi’s grave sense of crisis should be understood as arising from his conviction that attempts by He or Miao to form factions undermine the military’s paramount mission of securing victory in war.

We should always bear in mind that Xi’s determination to unify Taiwan is so strong that he would not hesitate to sacrifice his own handpicked military subordinates.

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