By Li Zhide
The rapid hollowing-out of the 20th Central Military Commission (CMC) has become the clearest entry point for understanding China’s current power structure. In an extraordinarily short period, the CMC—the supreme command organ of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—has been reduced to a shell.
Zhang Youxia, First Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, CMC member and Chief of the PLA Joint Staff Department, have both been placed under “review and investigation.” Together with the earlier removal of other vice chairmen and members, the outcome is unmistakable: aside from Xi Jinping himself, who serves as Chairman of the CMC, and one hastily installed replacement vice chairman, this entire CMC term exists largely in name only.
Official rhetoric has responded not with institutional explanation, but with ritualized loyalty. On the one hand, state media loudly reiterate the “Central Military Commission chairman responsibility system.” On the other, PLA Daily, the Chinese military’s flagship newspaper, repeatedly demands that the armed forces “resolutely obey Chairman Xi’s command, be responsible to Chairman Xi, and reassure Chairman Xi.” The phrase “reassure the leader” has been formally written into the PLA’s political requirements.
This language is striking. It does not emphasize collective leadership, institutional balance, or even the Central Military Commission itself. Instead, it reduces the military’s political obligation to a single psychological test: whether the top leader feels reassured.
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Against this backdrop, the central question becomes unavoidable. After purging even the generals long regarded as his closest confidants, how far will Xi Jinping go? Is there a natural stopping point—or does this system demand ever-greater concentration of power?
From loyal inner circle to systemic purge: how Xi Jinping dismantled his own military command
After the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress, the new Central Military Commission was widely viewed as the culmination of what insiders called the “Xi family army.” Zhang Youxia served as first vice chairman, He Weidong as second vice chairman. Members included Li Shangfu, Liu Zhenli, Miao Hua, and Zhang Shengmin, who also headed the CMC’s Discipline Inspection Commission. Nearly all were personally selected and promoted by Xi Jinping.
That structure unraveled with startling speed.
Foreign Minister Qin Gang disappeared from public view. Defense Minister Li Shangfu was placed under investigation. In October 2025, He Weidong and Miao Hua were simultaneously expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and stripped of their military ranks. Zhang Shengmin was rushed into the vice chairmanship. He Weidong thus became the first sitting CMC vice chairman in nearly sixty years to be purged while still in office.
Barely two weeks later, Zhang Youxia published a loyalty declaration in People’s Daily, warning the military against “two-faced people” and “false loyalty.” Soon afterward, he himself was announced to be under investigation, along with Liu Zhenli.
The result leaves little ambiguity. This Central Military Commission has been dismantled almost in its entirety. Procedurally, every step is cloaked in the language of “strict discipline enforcement” and “anti-corruption.” Politically, however, the driving logic is simpler and more revealing: the leader is not reassured.
In PLA Daily, the vocabulary of institutions has largely vanished. The phrase “Central Military Commission” itself appears less frequently than slogans demanding personal obedience. The “CMC chairman responsibility system” has been flattened into a requirement of personal reassurance, effectively equating institutional command with responsibility to a single individual.
Political scientist Wu Guoguang describes this dynamic as the “dictator’s spiral.” When an autocrat encounters dissatisfaction, the cause is attributed to insufficient power. Power is then further concentrated. As concentration deepens, information becomes more distorted, dissatisfaction increases, and the demand for even greater control intensifies.
The fall of Zhang Youxia marks a decisive point in this spiral. When even the most trusted “old comrade” can no longer be trusted, trust itself becomes structurally impossible.
The Chinese Communist Party’s military paradox: lessons from Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping
To understand the deeper logic behind today’s military purge, it is necessary to look back to earlier periods of CCP rule. Mao Zedong’s use of the military during the Cultural Revolution followed a brutal but coherent sequence. First, Mao shattered the civilian administrative system through mass political campaigns. Then he relied on the military to restore order.
After 1966, large numbers of officials were overthrown, and party and government systems collapsed into paralysis. Mao subsequently promoted the PLA’s “support the left” campaigns and the policy of “three supports and two militaries,” establishing “revolutionary committees” dominated by military officers across the country. Through extensive military control, chaos was forcibly contained.
At that stage, the PLA became the only effective pillar of authority. But the military was not merely an instrument. By taking over civilian governance, it acquired independent political influence. Lin Biao, the PLA’s second-in-command, was not only Mao’s designated successor but also controlled key military levers. After the 1971 “September 13 Incident,” Lin was denounced as a traitor, and the military leadership underwent another sweeping purge.
In essence, Mao used the military twice to reshape the political order: first to destroy the civilian system and reclaim power diluted by Liu Shaoqi, and then to dismantle the military elite itself and reclaim power that had shifted toward Lin Biao. Dependence on the military and fear of its autonomy were inseparable.
Deng Xiaoping inherited and modified this contradiction. His authority during the reform era rested heavily on revolutionary credentials and the support of senior generals. In the late 1980s, military power was concentrated in the Central Military Commission, where figures such as Yang Shangkun—Deng’s longtime comrade—commanded deep personal loyalty.
During the 1989 Tiananmen protests, the decisive institution was not the State Council or the National People’s Congress, but the military. Historical records show that martial law and the order to open fire were issued through the CMC, approved by Deng and Yang Shangkun, and executed by troops drawn from multiple military regions.
Afterward, Deng shifted political blame onto Zhao Ziyang, removing him as general secretary. Yet the military’s central role in the crackdown created new anxieties. In the early 1990s, Yang Baibing was reassigned, Yang Shangkun retired, and the influence of the so-called “Yang family army” was deliberately weakened. The stated rationale was “preventing military interference in politics.” The underlying logic was unchanged: the leader’s enduring distrust of military power.
Xi Jinping’s model of military control: anti-corruption, structural reform, and permanent distrust
Under Xi Jinping, this logic has been pushed to an unprecedented extreme.
When Xi assumed power, the PLA was deeply corrupt and factionalized. From the General Logistics Department to the General Armaments Department and across the former military regions, the buying and selling of ranks and promotions had become systemic.
The campaigns launched under the banners of “anti-corruption” and “military reform” therefore served dual purposes. They dismantled genuine corruption networks, but they also aimed to reconstruct the military around a single center of authority and a single chain of loyalty.
Within a few years, former CMC vice chairmen Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou were convicted. Scores of senior officers fell. The CMC’s internal organs were streamlined. Seven military regions were reorganized into five theater commands. New forces such as the PLA Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force were elevated. Real authority flowed ever more directly to the CMC chairman himself.
After 2023, a new wave of purges targeting the Rocket Force and the military equipment system accelerated this trajectory. Foreign media investigations indicate that since mid-2023, at least a dozen lieutenant generals and full generals linked to these systems have disappeared from public view or been dismissed, including former Rocket Force commanders and senior figures in the defense industry.
By 2025 and 2026, the purge reached even Zhang Youxia, He Weidong, Miao Hua, and Liu Zhenli—figures long assumed to be politically untouchable. This outcome exposes the central paradox of Xi’s system: the more power is concentrated, the less secure the leader becomes.
Wu Guoguang’s metaphor of the “red dancing shoes” captures this condition precisely. Once an autocrat puts them on, he cannot stop. Power never feels sufficient; it must always be tightened further.
Personalist rule and military purges: what comparative authoritarian research reveals
Comparative political research helps clarify why this pattern emerges. Scholars such as Barbara Geddes distinguish “personalist dictatorships” from military regimes and party-based authoritarian systems. Empirical studies consistently find that personalist systems are more unstable in foreign policy, more prone to miscalculation, and more vulnerable during leadership transitions.
Leaders in such systems rely on purges and fear rather than institutions. They privilege loyalists over professionals, distort information flows, and erode internal checks. Over time, governance becomes increasingly detached from reality.
Seen through this framework, the destruction of the Central Military Commission is not an anomaly. It is the structural outcome of personalist rule carried to its logical endpoint.
Three strategic risks facing Xi Jinping’s China: internal control, external conflict, and regime survival
Within this power structure, the question of “how far Xi Jinping will go” can be assessed along three dimensions.
The recent military purges show no sign of finality. As long as “reassuring the leader” remains a political commandment, any official who retains independent judgment risks being labeled disloyal. Politburo members, CMC vice chairmen, and heads of central ministries all face this vulnerability.
The predictable result is systemic self-censorship. Capable officials either stop speaking truthfully or are sidelined altogether. Over time, Chinese governance hardens into a technocratic façade driven internally by personal will rather than institutional deliberation.
Research shows that personalist regimes are more aggressive and more error-prone abroad. Jessica L. P. Weeks has demonstrated that the absence of internal checks and independent military or diplomatic advice increases the likelihood of unnecessary conflict.
In China’s case, the Taiwan issue stands at the center of global concern. Beijing’s insistence that it will not renounce the use of force, routine PLA operations around Taiwan, and U.S. warnings of heightened risk around 2027 have created persistent anxiety. In a military system destabilized by constant purges and disrupted command chains, professional cost assessments from below struggle to reach the top. When personal determination overrides expertise, the risk of conflict rises.
For any one-man system, the most difficult question is succession. Long-term comparative data show that personalist dictators are far less likely to exit peacefully than leaders in party-based systems.
China retains a vast party-state apparatus, and the PLA still presents itself as a national army. Yet when decision-making and personnel authority are concentrated in one individual and no clear succession mechanism exists, uncertainty multiplies. Repeatedly dismantling the Central Military Commission and governing through fear erode the system’s capacity for self-correction.
China’s leadership enters a narrowing tunnel: concentrated power and rising insecurity
From Mao to Deng to Xi, the relationship between China’s top leader and the military has resembled a rope repeatedly tightened and loosened. What distinguishes the present moment is context. The era of rapid economic growth has ended. Society is more complex. External pressure is more intense.
Under these conditions, governing through perpetual centralization and purges ties the country to a system with diminishing margins for error. Control may appear firm in the short term, but resilience steadily declines.
The repeated insistence in PLA Daily on “reassuring Chairman Xi” signals not only the leader’s distrust of others, but a broader loss of confidence in the system itself. Soldiers, officials, and ordinary citizens respond by reducing exposure—through silence, exit, or disengagement.
No one can say precisely how far Xi Jinping will go. What can be said with confidence is that as long as power concentration and insecurity reinforce each other, the system will continue moving forward without reliable brakes. The farther it goes, the harder it becomes to reverse.