China Announces Military Purge Ahead of CCP Fourth Plenum

Welcome to Foreign policyChina Brief.

This week’s highlights: China announces disinfection operation Military leadersCommunist Party of China Fourth plenary session Launched in Beijing, and repercussions from China Spy scandal It continues in the United Kingdom.

Welcome to Foreign policyChina Brief.

This week’s highlights: China announces disinfection operation Military leadersCommunist Party of China Fourth plenary session Launched in Beijing, and repercussions from China Spy scandal It continues in the United Kingdom.

China announces military clearance operations

Last Friday, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced the expulsion of nine senior military leaders from the Chinese Communist Party for “serious crimes related to their job.” Among those expelled were General He Weidong, a member of the Politburo and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Admiral Miao Hua, a senior political commissar.

This was not a dramatic overnight strike against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s enemies, as some headlines suggested. The leaders have long been captured, and the announcement is merely making it official. But why are they being revealed now, and what is the motive behind these arrests in the first place?

Since mid-2023, Xi has carried out serious military clearance operations that follow a typical progression: targets are captured and put into action indefinitely. liuzhiIt is a form of interrogation and detention, and within a year, they are removed from their official positions and expelled from the National People’s congress, if possible, before being expelled from the Chinese Communist Party.

Issuing arrest announcements together is common, and the timing here coincides with the fourth plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party, which began on Monday. Plenary sessions are meetings held seven times every five years of the Central Committee, the 205-member group that heads the party – although real power is actually held by the 24-person Politburo and the smaller, seven-man Standing Committee of the Politburo. Xi may be hoping to start the important event for the Chinese Communist Party with a clear reminder of who is in charge.

Although diaspora rumors often focus on the possibility of coups, I do not believe that these purges attempted to thwart a coup. The affected officers were mostly working in political and organizational positions. The only person who could have posed a serious coup threat was Wang Chunying, who oversaw the People’s Armed Police — the paramilitary force that also runs much of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal security.

My best guess – with the usual caveats about the opaqueness of China’s top leadership and military – is that fears of corruption are driving Xi’s current purges.

After seeing how corruption hampered the Russian military in its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party leadership launched an investigation in July 2023 into the People’s Liberation Army’s missile force and procurement practices that revealed widespread graft and embezzlement.

The investigation appears to have uncovered deep corruption in the People’s Liberation Army’s promotion system, centered around Miao and He Weidong, who oversaw promotions starting in 2017. This corruption was a major focus of Xi’s military purges in 2013-2014, after it was revealed in 2010 that the CIA was paying so-called promotion fees to its Chinese sources – bribes. required to advance within the Chinese bureaucracy.

Notably, the latest round of purges targeted several officials appointed by Xi himself — some of whom were specifically tasked with cleaning up past corruption. For example, Wang Hubin was appointed head of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force in July 2023 to replace former President Li Yuchao, who was ousted on corruption charges.

Xi may have viewed these expulsions as an opportunity to impose his authority over the People’s Liberation Army. But no matter how many people Xi purges – in the absence of any transparency or independent oversight mechanisms for either the People’s Liberation Army or the Chinese Communist Party – the financial and political incentives for corruption remain as strong as ever.

What we follow

The fourth plenary session continues. What else will come out of the Fourth Plenum this week? It is likely that some replacements will be announced for the purged military officials, especially for the currently understaffed Central Military Commission. Overall, I expect a fair amount of personnel changes, including the announcement of further purges on the civilian side.

The primary purpose of the plenary session is to outline China’s next five-year plan, which will set the tone for the country’s economic strategy from 2026 to 2030, and will be officially announced in March. But a lot can happen between now and then.

China could be drawn back into an all-out trade war on November 1 if US President Donald Trump follows through on his recent threats to impose 100% tariffs. Meanwhile, China is sticking to its position on new controls on rare earth elements while keeping channels open with the United States before the interim trade agreement expires on November 10.

Rocket power under the microscope As recent military purges have revealed, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, responsible for China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, faces serious political and reputational troubles. In addition to the revelations of widespread corruption, it has now lost two successive leaders, and Political Commissar Xu Shixing is also rumored to be on the verge of dismemberment.

The Rocket Force only dates back to 2016; Before this, it was known as the II Artillery Corps, which lacked the equal status with other military branches that the Rocket Force now has. But if the corruption problems are as serious as the investigations claim, there is a chance that the force will be reorganized in the near future.

This could mean anything from a reduction in status to a redistribution of its functions among other branches of the service.

The failure of espionage in the United Kingdom. The case against two British men accused of spying for China continues to reverberate across the UK. After initial allegations that the UK failed to classify China as a national security threat, hampering the prosecution’s case, the government released witness statements last week that showed otherwise.

The new statements make the prosecution’s decision to drop the case even more confusing. It also comes as the UK government is embroiled in another row, this time over China’s plans to create a so-called mega embassy that critics fear could be used as a base for spying.

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Technology and business

Shift tax collection? China is said to be considering a shift from collecting taxes at the point of production to the point of consumption. This idea has been proposed before, but it has gained momentum after overproduction has become a major economic problem in recent years — partly due to local officials, desperate to boost tax revenues, offering big incentives to build new factories.

Finally, switching tax models may push local officials to prioritize increasing consumption rather than ensuring industrialization, but China has talked about boosting consumption for years and still lacks results to prove it. For a public already concerned about the economy, the move is unlikely to change spending habits.