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Chinese leader Xi Jinping has purged dozens of senior People’s Liberation Army officers since mid-2023, including two in January, but will this increase the risk of war? The loss of experienced officers could make Xi less confident in how his military would perform, but his increased power could also provide him greater latitude to order troops into combat to achieve what might be a key legacy for him — the long-elusive unification of China with Taiwan. 

As political scientists recognize, competent leadership is a key ingredient of battlefield effectiveness. Recent purges have removed some of the highest-ranking and most experienced Chinese officers of their generation and underlined Xi’s lack of trust in his own inner circle. Zhang Youxia, who served as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which is the highest military decision-making and advisory body in China, was perhaps his closest advisor. Empty chairs at the decision-making table, and in key operational posts throughout the military, will weigh on any leader contemplating a war.  

The disruption, however, will likely be temporary. The greatest prospects for war will be in the medium term of the late 2020s to early 2030s when new commanders are firmly in place. Those officers will have stronger credentials but less power than their predecessors to push back if Xi embraces war optimism. Xi will also be aware that the long-term time horizon will be bleaker. Not only will he be gone, but his successor will have trouble managing a force that could revert to its old habits of corruption and obfuscation. The key for deterrence in these middle years will be to convince Xi himself, moreso than his military advisors, that the risks of aggression remain unacceptable.

Near-Term Woes 

The loss of senior commanders will probably reduce the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to plan for and conduct a war over the next year or two. The Central Military Commission has ceased to function. Members of this commission are typically appointed at the major conclaves of the Chinese Communist Party that meet every five years, called party congresses. Of the six officers who Xi appointed at the 20th Party Congress in Oct. 2022, the sole survivor is Zhang Shengmin. Unlike his former Central Military Commission colleagues Zhang Youxia or Liu Zhenli (who served concurrently as the chief of the joint staff and was also purged in January), Zhang Shengmin is not a combat veteran but a political commissar. These are uniformed officers whose main function is not to fight wars but to protect the authority of the party within the military by overseeing political indoctrination and personnel appointments. One of Zhang’s chief functions in recent years was managing the purges as head of the Discipline Inspection Commission. If war broke out tomorrow, there would be no high command to lead it. 

Below this level, Xi has taken out some of his most experienced operators over the past two-and-a-half years. Of the 43 generals and admirals that the most recent congressionally mandated report on China’s military power lists as having been purged since July 2023, 29 were senior operational commanders. Their responsibilities included leading the five theater commands (including two former commanders of the Eastern Theater, which would carry out cross-strait operations), services, and departments under the Central Military Commission. The purge cut more deeply into the operational muscle than an earlier campaign carried out from 2012 to 2015, in which most targets were logisticians and political commissars. Xi may have judged that such a drastic step was necessary to cleanse the force of its most corrupt offenders and elevate readiness to the high levels demanded in wartime.

Reconstituting key billets will take time. Given that many of the prime candidates would have had close professional connections to Zhang Youxia or other recently dismissed officers, Xi would be cautious in filling positions and may have to rely on deputies serving on an acting basis. Vetting will be difficult because the systems that Xi relied on to scrutinize choices were themselves impacted by the purges. This includes the political work system, which is responsible for managing promotions and whose leader Miao Hua was dismissed in 2024, and the Central Military Commission’s general office, which functions as a critical gatekeeper to Xi and as his “eyes and ears” to deliver information on military activities.  

To be sure, Chinese military and paramilitary forces will still be able to carry out powerful demonstrations, such as combat rehearsals around Taiwan. They may even be able to escalate to quasi-war activities such as a limited quarantine of the island. But the process necessary to vet new commanders and establish trust with Xi will take time. These delays could impact his ability to meet the deadlines he imposed on the force to be ready for a full-scale cross-strait conflict by 2027 — the ability to achieve a “strategic decisive victory” against Taiwan and credibly threaten U.S. intervention on Taipei’s behalf. Being ready for such a contingency in this tight timeframe was always going to be a tall order for a military that has not fought a war since 1979, but the replacement of many of the senior commanders who would be responsible for it has probably set the clock back.

 Peak People’s Liberation Army 

In the medium term, the odds of war will increase as new commanders arrive and trust is built. Cleaning the slate gives Xi a chance to reach into a new generation of rising stars who have professional advantages over their predecessors. They tend to be better educated and technically literate, have more real-world experience conducting operations in places like the Taiwan Strait and beyond China’s periphery, and have more experience operating in the new command structure that Xi established as part of his 2015-2016 reforms. Under those reforms, the old Cold War-era system that Xi inherited, where operational control was held by the services, was replaced by a national-level joint staff and five joint-theater commands. They are collectively responsible for developing contingency plans, executing joint training, and would lead forces from all the services into combat if ordered by Xi. Under the new system, there have been more officers from the navy and air force serving in senior roles, who would be tasked with conducting multi-domain joint operations. 

One example is the new Eastern Theater commander, Yang Zhibin, who assumed his role in Dec. 2025. A career air force officer, Yang served much of his early career in the former Nanjing Military Region opposite Taiwan and is therefore familiar with the cross-strait operating environment. What distinguishes him from his predecessors, however, is his impressive joint qualifications. Prior to his current position, he served as deputy commander in the Eastern, Western, and Southern Theaters. This type of experience is similar to the rotations offered to rising stars in the U.S. military to gain joint experience in a variety of challenging environments and emerge with stronger credentials. Xi will be able to benefit from more officers like Yang over the next several years. 

What makes this medium-term phase dangerous is not only the professional competence of the military’s new elite, which could give Xi confidence that he has the right people in place to lead a war, but the new party-army dynamic that puts him in control. In China, party-army relations refer to the ways in which the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership, which is led by Xi, exercises authority over the armed forces. In the past, the model was a bargaining relationship where military officers could exercise significant influence on internal military matters such as personnel and procurement. But by eviscerating his high command, Xi has become the unequivocal leader of the military — a role he has sought since early in his tenure under the label of the “Central Military Commission Chairman Responsibility System.” 

This system is enshrined in the 1982 Chinese constitution, but was largely ignored under Xi’s predecessors when the military vice chairman of the commission made most of the important decisions. This put Xi’s predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, into weak roles. By stressing the Chairman Responsibility System, Xi has positioned himself to make the tough calls and will not tolerate alternative power centers. Whoever he appoints to fill important vacancies will be in a diminished status and less likely to push back if Xi orders them to undertake risky missions. 

The critical variable is whether Xi’s calculus on war changes. In his first 15 years, he hesitated in pushing the boundary between war and peace. While he used armed forces aggressively in regional disputes, he was not as brash as Russian President Vladimir Putin and sought to avoid lethal force. By the late 2020s, Xi could conclude that the time is right for his end game with Taiwan. More capable generals with less ability to push back could promote the same war optimism that beguiled Putin — even if those officers privately think that a war would be too risky. Of course, the generals might be overly confident in their own skills and not desire to resist in the first place. These dynamics would complement other factors that push in the direction of war, such as new capabilities that make crossing the strait plausible and the tendency of aging autocrats to take more risks to firm up their legacy. 

After Xi: Back to the Past 

The long-term future could herald a return to the same problems that plagued Xi during his early years in power. Xi will be followed by a successor drawn from the civilian elite of the Chinese Communist Party. Specifically, that person is often selected from the Politburo Standing Committee, which is the party’s highest decision-making body and currently includes Xi and six other civilians. That person will not have had any military experience and may not have close connections with those in uniform. 

Xi has avoided naming a civilian vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, a role that he served in from 2010 to 2012, and may hesitate to do so until at least the 21st party congress in 2027 since this would atrophy his own power. A new civilian leader will take time to establish his credentials as chairman and have less latitude to order troops into combat. 

Xi’s successor will also have to contend with the same dysfunctions in party-army relations that he faced early in his tenure. These include poor information sharing, corruption, and limited willingness to work with colleagues from other parts of the national security apparatus. The reason why these problems are likely to resurface is that Xi has not changed the basic structure of party-army relations in China. Unlike Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who used internal security agents to purge the Red Army, Xi has allowed his army to remain autonomous of outside interference.  

Xi has established his own bona fides by developing a “cult of personality” through frequent appearances at military events and writings that troops must study. The emphasis on the Chairman Responsibility System is part of that strategy to elevate his own status. But to achieve his vision, he counts on the military to police itself. Political commissars are supposed to safeguard the party’s interests but are still uniformed officers, not external agents. Financial auditing is also done by specialists within the military rather than from outside inspectors. Xi also needs to rely on those in uniform to carry out the purges. These have been executed by military members who have aligned themselves with Xi (most notably Zhang Shengmin and members of the Discipline Inspection Commission system). 

Even after the most recent purges, this basic system of self-policing remains in place. Civilian oversight remains confined to Xi and management of the military is done internally. Xi might have avoided changing the party-army relationship because he needed military support to accomplish other goals, such as his 2015 to 2016 reforms. He also might have faced more concerted pushback against his leadership if he had attempted to impose Stalin-esque external checks and balances, such as sending in representatives of the civilian internal security forces to look into military malfeasance. Whatever his rationale, he has allowed the party’s military to continue to operate as an insular organization. External control is provided only by the thin reed of his own tenure as Central Military Commission Chairman, which will expire at some point in the coming years. 

Xi’s successor will therefore inherit a military staffed with capable generals, but ones who have too much autonomy and may return to their old habits. As scholars also note, the longer-term future for China will be beset by problems such as demographic trends that create economic headwinds the party will have to handle in the 2030s and 2040s, and China’s adversaries will have new military capabilities (such as stronger arsenals of hypersonic weapons) to counter offensive campaigns. Thus, even if military officers tend to be more professional than in the past, the successor will still have many other issues that could prevent them from taking decisive action against Taiwan.  

Navigating the Medium Term 

Xi himself is looking out to this uncertain future. He must consider what kind of military his successor will inherit, and whether that individual will be able to compel reunification through force during a tenure that may extend to mid-century. A bleaker outlook for the military in the long term could promote riskier decision-making in the medium term when Xi has the power and the leadership to make bold decisions. 

For China’s opponents, the key will be directly influencing Xi’s calculus. Military deterrence, such as exercises and the revelation of new capabilities, will be of little use if China’s military leadership is either too confident to be intimidated, or too intimidated by Xi to deliver bad news. Information underscoring the heavy risks, not only military but also economic and political, of a gamble on Taiwan must be messaged directly to Xi by his foreign counterparts. An example of effective messaging came in April 2023 when European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen warned Xi about the dangers of unilateral changes to the status quo. Statements from leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron suggesting that they might sit out a Taiwan conflict send the wrong signal. The essence of deterrence in the late 2020s and early 2030s will be whether the West and other supporters of Taiwan can speak truth to power in a way that might elude Xi’s own generals. 

Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University. His latest book, with Phillip C. Saunders, is China’s Quest for Military Supremacy (Polity, 2025). This essay represents only the views of the author and not those of the National Defense University, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

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Image: The White House via Wikimedia Commons