Long March Anniversary Exposes a Growing Rift Between Xi and the PLA

In 1934, Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces had brought the CCP's Red Army to the brink of destruction. The communists were forced to abandon their stronghold in Jiangxi and flee across China. So the Long March wasn't a conventional military victory. It was a desperate struggle to survive defeat. And in the middle of the retreat, the CCP leadership underwent a historic power struggle that marked the beginning of Mao Zedong's rise to supreme leadership. And that's what makes today's political messaging so fascinating. Both Xi Jinping's camp and the military are invoking a moment when the Communist Party was fighting for its very survival. But they're drawing two very different lessons from the same history. And guess who made the first move? The military. So on October the 17th, the Central Military Commission's political work department published an article in Qiushi magazine. It's the CCP's leading theoretical journal. And the title was Forging a World-Class Military with the Spirit of the Long March. Now, this wasn't just another propaganda piece, and I'll explain why. The article opens by describing the Long March as a great turning point in CCP history, which is true. It survived. so it is a major turning point then the article shifts to the present declaring that China has undergone historic transformations and that the PLA has been reborn from the ashes and renewed through a change of feathers there are three things worth noting here first who's speaking the article comes directly from the CMC's political work department which is the military's Political and Ideological Command Center. So this wasn't some journalist's personal opinion. It's an institutional statement from one of the PLA's most politically sensitive departments. Second, the historical parallel. The Long March marked a fundamental shift in the CCP's leadership and political direction, which helped save the Red Army from destruction. Now, 90 years later, the military is talking about another historic transformation. Could it be suggesting that the party is approaching another turning point, one that requires replacing the old leadership and changing direction? That's how many people interpret it. Third, and the most intriguing, is the choice of words. Remember those expressions I told you? Reborn from the ashes and renewed through a change of feathers. Now, in Chinese, they mean roughly the same thing. 浴火重生 and 焕羽新生. So the question is, why use both? Perhaps the repetition is meant to emphasize that today's PLA needs another major transformation, but it's the second phrase that caught many people's attention. And let me share that, share an image with you. Here we go. It goes back to the old prophecy or, okay, the expression, a change of feathers. Now, in Chinese politics, the word carries a very special meaning. So Xi Jinping's surname, written in traditional Chinese, consists of two components. The top is feather, the bottom is white. Put them together, you get Xi. And when Xi Jinping was a local official in Fujian, he published articles under the pen name Bai Yu, white feather. So the word feather carries political significance when people are looking for hidden references to Xi. Now back to the phrase, Huan Yu Xin Shen. It means shedding old feathers and being reborn. But could changing feathers also imply changing shape? And that's exactly what some people suspected when military media used this expression before. When this was used before, it sparked speculation about whether the PLA was hinting at a leadership change. But you may say, well, maybe the writer didn't realize how sensitive the phrase is. Maybe it's just a bad choice of words. Think about it. This is the CMC's political department, and this expression was causing so much speculations and rumors before. So why is it repeating again? So to me, that suggests the military isn't particularly concerned about avoiding language that could be read as a challenge to Xi. And like I said, this is the political work department, the very organization responsible for enforcing political loyalty inside the PLA. If there's anyone who should know this, it is the Political Work Department. And here's the final twist. Now, Qiushi Magazine isn't a military publication. It's one of the CCP's most authoritative ideological journals, and it's closely associated with Xi Jinping's leadership. So we now have the PLA's Political Work Department publishing an article in a major party journal using an expression that can be interpreted as a call to replace Xi Jinping. Okay, and then what happened? Two days later, on October the 19th, Xi Jinping's camp fired back. And of course, they used the same occasion, the 90th anniversary of the Long March. So on the 19th, the People's Daily published an article titled, Drawing Lessons from the Great Long March on how to strengthen the party and ensures its success. But this article delivered a very different message, which is that Xi Jinping's position as the party's core leader must not be challenged. And the author was Xie Chuntao, the executive vice president of the Central Party School. And who is in charge of the party school? Cai Qi, one of Xi's closest allies. So I suspect this article had Cai Qi's blessing, if not his direct instruction. Now, the article is very long, but its argument is simple. It argues that during the Long March, Mao Zedong's central leadership position was established, and that turned the tide for the CCP and eventually paved the way for its victory. And then the author draws a direct parallel to Xi Jinping. He argues that since the 18th Party Congress, the CCP has established Xi Jinping as its core leader. The article referenced an old Chinese saying, when a boat reaches the middle of the river, the waves grow fiercer. When a climber reaches halfway up the mountain, the path becomes steeper. In other words, the CCP is at a critical stage. The challenge or the challenges are growing and retreat is not an option. So what must the party do? Well, according to the author, defending the authority of the central committee begins with defending Xi Jinping's core leadership. The message? Protect Xi, defend Xi, and do not replace Xi. Now, here's where things get interesting. Let's compare the two articles. The first one is the PLA's political work department's article in Junshi magazine, the one calling for a change of feathers. Okay, so in that article, it refers to Mao Zedong becoming the party's core leader during Long March only once. But Xi Jinping's core leadership? Not a word. Now look at the Xie Chuntao's article in the People's Daily. How many times did the word core or core leadership appear? 17 times. Three references concern Mao Zedong. The other 14 emphasize Xi Jinping's core leadership. So let's break down the numbers. For Mao Zedong, three versus one. For Xi Jinping, 14 versus zero. That's a striking contrast. same historical event two very different political messages that's quite a contrast isn't it all right i'm not done yet there's another comparison that's even more revealing and this time let's look at two of china's most authoritative state media outlets one represents the military the other represents the party state first the PLA's official media platform uh china military online Today, it published, I would say yesterday, yeah, 21st, it published a major front page commentary under the pen name, Jie Xinping, that name is significant. That's a pseudonym associated with PLA commentary. All right, so the article, the PLA article is titled, The Long March Never Ends on the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Red Army's Long March. And the article is enormous. It has more than 10,000 Chinese characters. It's a very long political commentary. And here's what caught people's attention. In those 10,000 plus characters, how many times does the word core leadership appear? Zero. Not once. And that's not all. Okay. And then other standard political languages such as CMC chairman responsibility system or authority, the very doctrine emphasizing Xi Jinping's ultimate authority in the military, that's not mentioned. What about follow Chairman Xi's command, which has always been a cookie cutter expression to pledge loyalty, not mentioned either. These used to be standard political language in PLA publications. And here's the most extraordinary part. In an article of more than 10,000 Chinese characters, none of the above political jargons were mentioned. Let me tell you, do you know how many times does the name Xi Jinping appear in an extremely long article of over 10,000 words? Zero. Not a single mention of Xi Jinping. Let's compare that with what Xinhua News Agency published on the very same day. Xinhua released a major political commentary commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Long March victory. And I want you to pay attention to how it was presented. It was explicitly labeled a Xinhua political commentary, which gives it considerable political weight. The article was also very long, roughly, I think, between 5,000 to 6,000 words. But the language couldn't have been more different. How many times did the word core leadership appear? Nine times. How many times was Xi Jinping mentioned by name? Also nine times. So now, do you see the difference? On one side, we have the military's official media controlled by the PLA. On the other side, we have the party state's official media controlled by Cai Qi same anniversary same historical event same communist party but when it comes to Xi Jinping and his core leadership their language is strikingly different and i don't think that difference is accidental in fact i believe it helps explain something we've been saying for a month ever since Zhang Youxia was taken down why haven't we seen senior PLA commanders publicly rallied behind the denouncement and the investigation against him. Why hasn't the military come forward with a strong unified declaration of support? Instead, what we've seen is silence. And that silence, in my view, looks increasingly like resistance. And I think the answer may be hiding in plain sight in the language of the military's own publications. Okay, so that brings us back to a point I've made repeatedly. My assessment is that although Xi Jinping succeeded in removing Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, he failed to regain full control of the armed forces. And PLA has not returned its loyalty to Xi Jinping. Instead, I believe the military's power center has shifted toward the party's central decision-making body, a rival center of authority within the CCP. Now, there's another piece of evidence that makes the growing distance between Xi Jinping and his military even more obvious. That is, Xi Jinping has apparently stopped visiting his own troops. As chairman of the Central Military Commission and the commander-in-chief, who commands more than two million personnel visiting military units, meeting officers and soldiers, is his job, is his routine, I mean, routine parts of his job. But something changed in 2026. Since January, he has not made a single, I should say, publicly reported inspection of a military unit outside Beijing. Not one in nearly 10 months. And that's very unusual. Now let's compare Xi Jinping's military visits over the past four years. In 2023, he visited military units outside Beijing seven times. 24, nine times. 25, five times. And in 2026, zero. What's particularly strange is that he hasn't stopped traveling. So in March, he visited Xiongan in Hebei, but he skipped the nearby 82nd Group Army headquarters. In April and July, he traveled to Shanghai, but didn't meet the troops stationed there. In June, he visited Shandong, but didn't inspect local military units. And just last week, October the 16th, he traveled to Inner Mongolia, but skipped the Zhurihe military training base. Remember Zhurihe? This was July 30th, 2017. Xi held a massive military parade at the base to celebrate the PLA's 90th anniversary. More than 12,000 troops participated. Nine years later, he returned to Inner Mongolia, but there was no visit to Zhuzhihe, no military inspection. What a contrast. And even before the Chinese New Year, Xi broke his usual practice of visiting troops in person. Instead, he greeted military personnel by video link from the military building, from the PLA building in Beijing. So why has Xi Jinping continued to travel around China while apparently avoiding military units? I see three possible explanations. First, he has made too many enemies in the military. Someone did the math. Ever since he took power in 2012, he has carried out one military purge after another. Now, as many as 418 generals have been investigated or removed over the past 14 years. Now, think about that. Every general who falls has colleagues, subordinates, and allies, right? How many of those people still trust Xi Jinping? Okay, that's first reason. The second reason is Xi Jinping may not even trust his last remaining CMC member, Vice Chairman Zhang Shengming. In the past, Xi Jinping's military inspections were arranged by the CMC general office with senior commanders accompanying him. So like Zhang Youxia and He Weidong used to accompany him on these military inspection tours. Sometimes both vice chairmen were there, were next to him, sometimes at least one. So if he goes, then Zhang Shengming would be going with him. Xi Jinping may not trust Zhang Shengming at all. So here's the question. Will he feel safe allowing someone he may not trust to arrange his visits or to even go with him to military bases? That's the second question. And the third is the recent events in Venezuela and Iran may have raised new security concerns for him. Remember on January 3rd, U.S. Special Forces captured Nicolas Maduro in a lightning operation, And then on February 28th, U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader, along with some other senior officials. These operations showed how vulnerable even heavily protected leaders can be. And some analysts believe that these events have left a psychological scar on Xi Jinping because he has removed too many senior officers. And he could be very concerned about his own safety when visiting military bases. The absence of military inspections alone doesn't prove Xi Jinping has lost control of the armed forces. But put it together with everything we've discussed, the military's official publications are avoiding Xi Jinping's name and his core leadership position and his political loyalty slogans. Instead, they're now using phrases like changing feathers, which can be interpreted as a coded reference to replace Xi. Senior commanders have not publicly rallied behind the investigation of Zhang Youxia in the way we might have expected. And now the commander-in-chief himself has apparently stopped visiting his troops. The public displays of loyalty have diminished, the military inspections have stopped, and you can't stop people from concluding that the rift between Xi Jinping and his military appears to be growing. If Xi Jinping can no longer count on the military's support, his political future could be far less secure than many people realize. Thank you so much for watching. If you're new here, please hit subscribe. Don't forget to give my video a like. If you want me to answer your questions directly, please join my live every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. I'd love to chat with you there.