By Jian Yi
“Xi looked to be in a very bad mood today. His face was unusually tense during the meeting with the Uruguayan president,” one user wrote on X, joking about Xi Jinping’s demeanor.
In the comments, another user pointed to what appeared to be significant facial swelling. Since the arrests of Zhang Youxia, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission overseeing the PLA, and Liu Zhenli, the former chief of the PLA Joint Staff Department, Xi has repeatedly drawn attention for appearing fatigued, strained, or physically unwell during public appearances.
Some observers believe these visible signs reflect the extraordinary pressure Xi is facing. Although Zhang and Liu have been officially removed from their posts, commentators argue that the two senior generals spent decades cultivating extensive personal networks and authority within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s armed forces. According to this view, the lingering influence of those networks continues to weigh heavily on Xi, creating psychological strain that may even be affecting his health.
At the same time, professional analysts caution that while Xi may appear to have prevailed in the latest round of military purges, his actions have further weakened the CCP system’s long-term structural stability.
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Some analysts have adopted a term unlikely to sit well with the 70-plus-year-old Chinese leader. They describe Xi’s sweeping purges as a form of “Stalinism,” specifically in its “late-stage” variant.
Signs of turbulence inside the PLA
Signals emerging from PLA Daily, the Chinese military’s official propaganda outlet, suggest that Xi remains deeply concerned about the condition of China’s armed forces.
One example is an otherwise routine article published on Feb. 3 focusing on a unit in the Xinjiang Military District, a regional PLA command in China’s far west. In that piece, a striking keyword stands out: “psychology.”
In a report of fewer than 600 words, terms related to mental health appeared nearly 20 times, including “psychological fluctuations,” “psychological counseling,” “mental health,” “tension, anxiety, and irritability,” “low morale,” and “psychological gloom.”
While the article ostensibly addressed a single army unit, analysts believe its true audience was the PLA as a whole. When read alongside recent developments—such as the arrests of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli; the circulation of online videos showing military vehicle movements across China; an unusual silence in military media; the rapid softening of official language used to characterize the Zhang and Liu cases; and repeated PLA Daily commentaries urging the entire military to align with Xi “in both thought and action”—these signals form a coherent and troubling pattern.
According to the article’s analysis, one phrase best captures this convergence: instability in military morale.
A passage from the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2025 China Military Power Report, an annual assessment of PLA capabilities, remains relevant even after the arrests of Zhang and Liu. The report warns that leadership changes and prolonged vacancies can undermine policy continuity, while such personnel disruptions often trigger cascading effects throughout the PLA.
It is against this backdrop, commentators argue, that Xi has appeared stiff-faced and visibly strained in recent public appearances.
‘Acceleration’ toward systemic risk
In a recent analysis, U.S. specialists used a word that has drawn particular attention: “acceleration.” Among Chinese netizens, Xi has long carried the nickname “the accelerator,” a reference to his rapid policy moves.
Matthew Johnson, a senior researcher at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based security think tank, published an analysis on Jan. 26 examining the arrests of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. Titled “Beijing’s Late Stalinism,” the piece argues that Xi’s consolidation of power through these arrests has “accelerated the CCP political system’s drift toward a form of late-stage Stalinist imbalance.”
According to Johnson, Xi appears to have gained the upper hand in the latest military purge, but only by dismantling institutional safeguards that once stabilized elite politics. Rather than resolving the system’s deep-seated vulnerabilities, the purge has intensified them.
Johnson also examines how the cases against Zhang and Liu were framed. In Leninist systems, he argues, “anti-corruption” functions less as a genuine motive than as a language of legitimacy. In systems defined by opaque procurement, highly discretionary power, and politicized resource allocation, nearly all senior officials can be implicated in some form of corruption.
Johnson concludes that Xi fundamentally distrusts any independent center of authority.
Cai Qi and Wang Xiaohong in the crosshairs?
This assessment has led commentators to draw connections to Cai Qi, a Politburo Standing Committee member overseeing party discipline and internal security, and Wang Xiaohong, China’s public security minister controlling the national police apparatus. With the removal of powerful military figures such as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, some analysts argue that Cai and Wang now rank among the few remaining individuals capable of posing a potential challenge to Xi.
Viewed through the lens of Xi’s frequently invoked “bottom-line thinking,” the article suggests that Cai and Wang may have become newly perceived political risks in Xi’s calculations. This has fueled speculation that the blade of future purges could turn toward them or their close associates.
While Xi’s actions against Zhang and Liu may appear to have delivered short-term success, Johnson argues that “late-stage Stalinism” ultimately leads to a systemic dead end.
By binding personal authority directly to regime survival, the system leaves no room for independent grievance mechanisms or stable succession procedures. “Only the leader and the system he personally sustains remain,” the analysis notes. As long as Xi remains in power, he can dominate the political landscape. But relentless purges, institutional hollowing, and concentrated authority make it increasingly difficult for the system to endure smoothly once he exits the stage.
A historical echo from the Soviet experience
For Russians, Stalinism remains a deeply painful historical memory. Some commentators argue that these experiences carry lessons that CCP officials ignore at their peril.
Former Soviet propaganda chief Alexander Yakovlev, a key reformer under Mikhail Gorbachev, once described Stalin as “violent by nature and among the most cunning villains,” calling him the clearest embodiment of Bolshevik rule and a master of deception and terror. Yakovlev argued that the resulting system inflicted such profound psychological damage that even today, some continue to revere a man responsible for the deaths of millions.
In his book The Fog: Reflections on Russia’s Troubled Century, Yakovlev reflected on Russia’s path since the October Revolution:
“The twentieth century has ended. For Russia, it was the most terrible, blood-soaked century, filled with hatred and fanaticism. The time has come to awaken and repent, to ask forgiveness from the survivors of imprisonment, to kneel before the millions who were executed or starved to death, and to finally acknowledge that we ourselves helped the system enslave us—enslave all of us, each and every one.”
The article concludes that if the detained Chinese generals were ever to read these words, their emotional response might be deeper than that of anyone else.
Editor’s Note: