Did Xi Jinping's Military Purge Leave Beijing Defenseless?

Last Friday, a small civilian aircraft flew into the heart of Beijing and crashed into the city's tallest skyscraper, the civic headquarters. The incident immediately became one of the biggest security embarrassments Beijing has faced in years. Now, Beijing is protected by what the CCP has long promoted as one of the world's most sophisticated air defense networks. And just two months ago, on May 1st, Beijing implemented what it described as the world's strictest drone no-fly regulations. Residents in Beijing are prohibited from flying drones. They can't fly kites, not even pigeons. If you keep pigeons, you must obtain, I think, government approval, prior approval. So here's the obvious question. How could a two-seat civilian aircraft fly into the heart of Beijing and strike one of the city's most important landmark buildings? Why wasn't it intercepted? What happened to Beijing's air defense system? Let me walk you through several explanations offered by Chinese analysts, including some with contacts inside the PLA. Now, one military analyst identified three major vulnerabilities exposed by Beijing's apparent failure to secure its airspace. The first involves the aircraft itself. Unlike a drone, this was a manned aircraft operating under a legitimate flight training authorization. Once it deviated from its planned route, the existing air traffic control handoff system apparently failed to respond effectively. At the same time, electronic jamming measures were largely ineffective against a light aircraft being flown manually by a pilot. And the second vulnerability lies in the limitation of the CCP's traditional air defense radar. He said these radar systems are primarily designed to detect conventional aircraft and missiles from foreign forces. They're much less effective against domestic, small composite material aircraft flying at low altitude and relatively low speeds. In other words, these newer types of light aircraft may represent a domestic security threat that Beijing simply hadn't fully anticipated. The third vulnerability was the complete absence of any interception after the aircraft signal disappeared. Now, according to reports online, the timeline of the incident was that the aircraft first deviated from its planned route at around 5.40 p.m. It did not crash into the Sidiq Tower until around 6 p.m., leaving a window of nearly 20 minutes. The aircraft reportedly disappeared from radar near Beijing's East Fifth Ring Road. The straight line distance from there to Sidiq Tower is only about a dozen kilometers. And then during that time, neither the military nor law enforcement appears to have intervened. In other words, after a suspicious aircraft was detected, no emergency interception procedures seemed to have been activated. So here's the question, why wasn't the aircraft intercepted? And there's a former Chinese pilot, his name is Gao Fei, who now lives in the U.S. He offered two possible explanations based on his experience in China. The first is simple bureaucratic paralysis. So according to Mr. Gao, even if air traffic controllers noticed the aircraft immediately, they would not have dared to act on their own. Standard procedure requires controllers to first attempt to contact the pilot, which they have done with no response. So while they try to contact the pilot, they need to simultaneously report the abnormal situation to the duty supervisor. The supervisor, however, would also be reluctant to make an immediate decision. And Mr. Gao offered this insight. He said Beijing is a highly sensitive airspace. Senior CCP officials regularly travel in and out of the capital. It will be difficult to determine whether the aircraft had special authorization. And let's not forget another reality. People who own or fly private aircraft in China are usually wealthy, politically connected, or both. What if the pilot happened to be a member of a powerful red family? Very few bureaucrats would dare make that call on their own. So by the time officials finished reporting the situation, requesting instructions, and waiting for approval, the aircraft had already reached the vicinity of the city tower. At that point, it was simply too late. Mr. Gao's second explanation is far more serious. He argues that the PLA Air Force units on duty under the Central Theater Command may have deliberately allowed the aircraft to pass. The Air Force of Central Theater Command is responsible for air operations and air defense over Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and several nearby regions. Its primary mission is straightforward, protect the capital. If an unidentified aircraft enters restricted airspace, especially over Beijing, the normal procedure would be to report the situation, up the chain of command, while simultaneously scrambling fighters already on alert to intercept it. Yet none of that appears to have happened. That led Mr. Gao to wonder whether the Air Force intentionally stood aside. Let me show you a map. The orange dot on the right hand side marks Shifuosi Airport, where the aircraft reportedly took off. The red dot on the left marks the crash site at the city tower. The yellow line shows the aircraft's approximate flight path. The four green markers indicate nearby PLA air defense installations. As you can see, the aircraft flew past at least two of them before reaching downtown Beijing. So Mr. Gao's assessment is echoed by another China analyst, Mr. Wu Zuolai, who said that he received information from a contact inside the PLA. And according to Mr. Wu, the source told him, the Central Theater Command has at least six air defense brigades across its three group armies, with hundreds of radar systems. Tangshan alone has four air defense regiments. Everything inside Beijing's Sixth Ring Road is a no-fly zone. The only conclusion is that they simply lay flat and did nothing. The same source also added, the Central Theater Command's air defense network is the most comprehensive in all of China. You could say it has virtually no blind spots. He said, this aircraft's ability to fly in and strike the city tower completely caught me by surprise. Either the entire system was shut down, or it detected the aircraft but chose not to act. That would suggest the military's command and control system was effectively paralyzed. So if Mr. Gao's analysis and these claims from military insiders are accurate, then this was not simply an air defense failure. It would suggest that the aircraft was allowed through, either deliberately or because the PLA's command and control system had broken down. And then another analyst offered a third possibility or insight. She argued that the incident may reflect the continuing turmoil inside the PLA following Xi Jinping's purge of senior military leaders. The authority to order the interception of an unidentified aircraft over Beijing would not rest with the Beijing municipal government, nor would it rest with Cai Qi, despite his responsibility for Beijing's overall security. That authority belongs to the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission. Now before his arrest in January, the department was headed by General Liu Zhenli, who served as chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department. So since General Liu's removal, the department has reportedly undergone an extensive purge, with numerous officers taken away for investigation. Now, if that's true, the command center itself may not yet be fully operational. In that case, the failure to intercept the aircraft may have been the result of a paralyzed command structure, rather than a failure of radar or air defense technology. And then there's yet another possibility. Xi Jinping's arrest of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli dealt a serious blow to morale inside the PLA. By moving against Zhang Youxia, who was widely regarded as one of the most respected commanders in the PLA, Xi Jinping may also have created resentment among many senior officers, senior or even junior. And by doing that, he might have intensified resistance to his repeated demands for political loyalty. So from that perspective, some analysts argue that it cannot be ruled out that this resentment translated into deliberate inaction. Rather than intervening, some officers may simply have chosen to stand aside and watch, or simply wait for an order coming from above, while they watch as a small civilian aircraft entered one of the most sensitive areas of Beijing. They were curious to see what kind of political and psychological impact such an incident would have on Xi Jinping. Now, whether the explanation was bureaucratic paralysis, a breakdown of the command system, or deliberate inaction, all three theories point back to the same issue, Xi Jinping's decision to remove Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. From that perspective, one could argue that Friday's aircraft incident is, at least indirectly, connected to the unresolved Zhang Youxia-Liu Zhenli cases.