What Beijing’s Purges of Top Military Leaders Mean for a Taiwan Contingency: Analysis

Welcome back. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Beijing has purged two top military leaders, the latest in a series of investigations. It's leading analysts to question the stability of the party. But what does all this mean for a Taiwan contingency? And how should the U.S. evaluate and handle relations with China? Joining us now to unpack what all of this means is Steve Yates, Senior Research Fellow for China and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Steve, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Now diving straight in, how are you reading these latest investigations into two of the country's most senior military figures? What does that tell you about the state of the party? Well, I have a number of friends who've served for many, many years watching this very, very closely, and all of them say that this is unprecedented. At the same time, it really doesn't change a lot of the choices the U.S. government has to make about what they're going to have to respond to or necessarily tell us what China will do. Ultimately, we look at China being run by Xi Jinping, and this purge of the military under normal circumstances would be dramatic. You'd think it would take a contingency in the Taiwan Straits off the table, but you just can't take anything off the table with Xi Jinping. So unfortunately, it gives us a lot to watch, a lot to try to analyze and unpack. And I would bet that the NTD audience has as good information as anybody about this. But unfortunately, we still have a powerful government that could be irresponsible at any time. And they have these trials and tribulations in the military leadership that are going to continue. I mean, as you noted in the intro, this is not the first. They were barely left with anybody at the top of the Central Military Commission at this point. So we have to see where they go politically. I want to dig into that Taiwan aspect, because these two were the last generals with real war experience. What could that mean in terms of a Taiwan contingency? Well, you could read it different ways. So I'll just play the scenario out a little bit. One could read it as they might think, looking at what the United States has done with its armada vis-a-vis Venezuela, looking at what the US was able to do with Iran and hitting sensitive facilities before Chinese tech was able to detect the entry or exit of American forces at that time. These generals could have said, well, you know, we have a lot of investment and a lot of manufacturing deployed. We don't have a lot of kinetic experience and certainly not up against the likes of the United States. They could have been urging caution or more time when she wants to go sooner. At the same time, there are lots of things that could be explaining what's going on with this. The military has been wedded into webs that could be called corrupt at any time. That's the nature of the institution and the way it's financed itself over recent decades. And there could just be political intrigue that goes into why someone's time is up and the mafia boss has decided it's your time to go through a trial or exile or worse. Now, to your point, if Xi Jinping is surrounded by those he sees as loyalists or who are not going to raise caution for a Taiwan plan, could that actually move up that potential Taiwan invasion? Well, I'm one that doesn't really believe there will be a Taiwan invasion in the near term. And part of that is perhaps my hope. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I hope that some measure of real leadership there would recognize that it is militarily very, very difficult. Technologically, that has only gotten more difficult. And if they look at where Russia went, are they that much better in terms of their surety of where their military machine would go in that kind of a contingency? And we have Japan and other powers making clear that this is not something that they would consider incidental or irrelevant to their national interests. So I think those scenarios have gotten more complicated in the last year or two. And so I hope that there's rationality that says that this isn't going to go sooner, but you can never say never. And that's why I think we will always have these questions. We'll always do our best to try to answer them, but we just don't get to know. That's where former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was right. We have to be careful what we know we know and what the things are that we just can't know. And that's life and that's military planning. And given these latest purges, some analysts are wondering about the stability of the party apparatus inside Beijing, because this also follows recent CIA recruitment videos in Chinese, seeking those in the country to come forward with information. In your view, how stable is the party right now? Or is there a sense of distrust maybe among the party elite? Yeah, I don't think that the party is that stable. Unfortunately, though, I also have a dim view that unstable and ineffective parties in these authoritarian regimes can linger way too long. The searing experience of my lifetime was the North Korean regime in the 1990s, pronounced dead by nearly every intelligence service and diplomatic service in the world. And it's still very much around today. And so I think we have to be cautious about how close it is. And we have a recent experience with Iran, where there's widespread demonstrations and the regime looks to be on the ropes. It could still be on the ropes. In fact, I hope it is because it's a terrible regime that I hope ends for the sake of the Iranian people. We have a similar situation with China, where if the economy is shrinking, they're an export-dependent economy. And if they're playing dangerous games in the United States, playing political games with countries like Canada, and their economic drivers for low energy, like Iran and Venezuela, are getting affected. And if Russia is not a driving engine of growth or opportunity, where do they turn to have confidence? So I think that their options have actually gotten worse. But unfortunately, when you have bloody regimes, they don't have to have only good options before they're willing to take risks. And that is just where we are. In terms of the party leadership that is left, could we see some of them trying to preserve their own status and power and perhaps revolt against Xi Jinping? What's the likelihood of something like that? Yeah, I would just put the likelihood as lower, just because Xi has spent his entire time in government killing, trying, purging people who might be in a position to do that. And at this point, they have the world's most advanced surveillance state, and they probably surveil each other more than they surveil anybody else. And so that's where I would think that the odds are a little bit difficult. At the same time, I'm just someone who believes that in the evolution of mankind, get to these points where these regimes get brittle, they make mistakes, and the people have had enough. I wish I had a better crystal ball to tell me when we are close or at those kind of tipping points. And I think that the people of China certainly deserve better, and they would have much, much better options under a more humane and accountable government. But I just don't see Xi Jinping going easily or willingly. And so I think that we are in for probably political struggle and more purges like this in institutions beyond just the military. And to your earlier point, with all that's happening inside China, how should the U.S. be evaluating and handling all of this? For instance, are there lessons from the fall of the Soviet Union that could potentially be applied here? Well, there are some lessons, but I think that we're in just such a different place in the world. I think at this point, unambiguously, the United States is a very, very strong economy. It is getting maybe stronger militarily. Its alliances, despite some of the political show going on around the world, are actually pretty capable and strong when they matter to China. And so I think that the main thing that the United States really ought to be doing is, if they have this much unreliable lack of transparency, unaccountability in the military, and then we really need to make sure that our supply chains are insulated, if not completely decoupled from this kind of a risky regime. The U.S. administration and some around the world have not moved as fast as they might. I know it can't be a one day and done, quick on and off switch, but especially Europe, Canada, and some others, they've been toying with the idea of deepening strategic partnership. This should be a signal that says, absolutely not the time to do that with this kind of regime. Because if there is a change, my bet is the people of China will remember those that tried to give a lifeline to a dying, tyrannical regime. And on that last point, you know, we've seen some reversals, if you will, with Canada's Mark Carney now walking back some of those trade deals after President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canada. And of course, we saw with the UK as well, the Chagos Islands was in the headlines a lot after that deal was approved last year. But then Trump, this last week, criticized it a lot and now it's being walked back as well. How are you reading that? Because some were saying that China's driving a wedge between the US and allies. But is that really true? I think China is trying to, and sometimes our allies, because of domestic politics, in my assessment, not everyone agrees with me, but in my assessment, they're blindly critical of President Trump. So if he cured cancer, they'd still blame him for something. And so I think that that, I think visceral dislike for the style of President Trump has led them to consider options that in normal circumstances would be an obvious no. And so I think that we need our allies to sort of sober up. Some of the people in their own systems are saying as much in Europe and in Canada. And as you report, we are seeing some of these sobriety checkpoints coming back to maybe not so fast, but it shouldn't be this hard of work to convince the UK not to give sovereignty to strategically located territory to the People's Republic of China or one of their useful allies. That shouldn't need to be a debate among Five Eyes countries. Well, Steve Gates, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much.