On the eve of the Third Plenary Session of the Twentieth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), former Defense Ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu were expelled from the Party and referred to military procuratorial organs for investigation and prosecution on charges of corruption and disloyalty. Since July last year, a total of 12 senior military leaders have been purged by the CCP. Experts believe that the ongoing purges in the CCP military are bound to affect the combat effectiveness of the Chinese military.
In 2023, the CCP military, especially the Rocket Force, underwent a major purge. In July of that year, media reports revealed that senior officials of the Rocket Force, including the commander, were taken away for investigation by personnel from the CCP Military Commission.
On December 29th last year, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the CCP announced the dismissal of nine military representatives, including three generals and four lieutenant generals, mostly from the Rocket Force and the Equipment Development Department.
On February 27th this year, Deputy Commander of the Central Theater Command, Li Zhizhong, had his National People’s Congress representative qualification terminated.
Together with Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, a total of 12 senior CCP military officials have been purged under the pretext of anti-corruption. This includes two former Defense Ministers, three Rocket Force commanders, and one Air Force commander.
According to an announcement by the CCP’s Xinhua News Agency, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe “severely violated political discipline,” abused their power for personal gains, accepting substantial bribes. However, unlike the cases of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, the exact amounts of corruption were not specified.
Furthermore, while Li Shangfu’s charges include both giving and receiving bribes, Wei Fenghe was only found to have received bribes. However, during the investigation of both individuals, “other serious violations of discipline and law were discovered.”
Yuan Zongji, former Dean of the Political Warfare Institute of the National Defense University of Taiwan, expressed to Dajiyuan that from the wording of the announcement, the significant financial exchanges between Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, who held consecutive Defense Minister positions, suggest a major monetary relationship between the two, leading to their downfall. The act of seeking personal gains for others, or buying and selling official positions, indicates that officials promoted during their tenures may have been obtained through financial transactions.
“The corruption within the CCP military is ingrained in its tradition. The removal of two Defense Ministers highlights that the corruption within the CCP military has not undergone any changes despite Xi’s decade-long grip on power.”
Shen Mingshi, a researcher and director at the Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security Studies, told Dajiyuan that the current anti-corruption approach in the CCP is to first bring down officials before investigating them. Therefore, in the investigation of the Equipment Development Department, a cutoff point was set, tracing back only to 2017 and not involving Vice Chairman of the Military Commission, Zhang Youxia.
“I don’t think it’s just about corruption,” he said. With a situation where almost every senior CCP military leader may have been involved in corruption, there could also be factional or other issues at play. Hence, the sequence and manner in which these officials are removed may vary.
Shen Mingshi analyzed that Li Shangfu was brought down early and efforts were made to find charges against him, which may have led to the discovery of Wei Fenghe’s involvement during the investigation, resulting in both being implicated. The formal announcement was made on the eve of the Third Plenum to deal with the issue of Defense Minister Dong Jun’s entry into the Military Commission. If Li Shangfu did not have clear evidence of wrongdoing, Dong Jun’s direct appointment to the fourth-ranking member of the Military Commission would seem inappropriate.
“Besides the military’s rectification, many provincial and ministerial-level officials have been replaced on the eve of the Third Plenum. This may have been decided during last year’s Beidaihe Conference, and the Third Plenum is meant to endorse those decisions, causing the Third Plenum to lose its traditional function of endorsing major policies.”
Despite having the world’s largest standing army, navy, and expanding nuclear arsenal in terms of numbers, the CCP military has not faced any wartime challenges over the past half-century.
The core of the recent purge is the Rocket Force, described by authorities as the “strategic deterrent core” and the “cornerstone of national security,” responsible for overseeing the rapid expansion of the CCP’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenal. The near-complete overhaul of the Rocket Force is bound to impact its combat capabilities.
Shen Mingshi stated that the anti-corruption measures are currently affecting the Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force, responsible for joint firepower strikes and the integration and enhancement of military capabilities, making them crucial.
He believes that in addition to the seven high-ranking officials of the Rocket Force, around seventy to eighty senior officers of the rank of major general or colonel have also been implicated. These individuals were promoted by Li Yuchao, Li Shangfu, or Wei Fenghe, and the key issue lies with the battalion commanders or base commanders of these firing units. If they are all implicated and replaced, the Rocket Force’s professionalism, training, and strategic integration could encounter issues.
“Why did Xi Jinping say when meeting with EU leaders that the US may try to lure him into attacking Taiwan, but he won’t fall for it? He is now well aware that before 2027, his forces will not be capable of supporting an attack on Taiwan.”
Yuan Zongji stated that the Rocket Force is the backbone of the CCP’s military invasion against Taiwan. With the Rocket Force plagued by such serious corruption, Xi cannot simply bring in personnel from the Navy or Air Force to take over as outsiders, as how can these outsiders lead such a highly specialized unit?
“With the current priority on loyalty over professional competence in personnel appointments, this kind of thinking applied to a high-tech unit like the Rocket Force makes it impossible to achieve expectations of winning wars.”
Yuan Zongji claimed that the Rocket Force, being a high-tech military branch with frequent external exchanges and comprising the highest-caliber personnel, is currently the least confident unit in terms of winning wars, especially when compared to the US military.
“Last year, the US exposed the extensive deployment of the Rocket Force, using intelligence as a deterrent to prevent the CCP’s top leaders from becoming overly confident and being deceived by close aides into thinking that a swift resolution could be achieved in the Taiwan Strait, repeating Putin’s mistake of deciding to invade Ukraine.”
Since 2012, the CCP has employed anti-corruption and political loyalty as tools for internal strife, and the recent military purge indicates that this campaign is far from over.
In the charges against Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, the highlighted aspect is the “severe violation of political discipline”; Li Shangfu for “betraying his original mission and losing party principles,” and Wei Fenghe for “loss of faith and disloyalty.” Both cases are described as “extremely serious in nature, with extremely negative effects and particularly enormous harm.”
During a political work conference of the Military Commission held in Yan’an on the 17th, the CCP leader emphasized “political army building” and “politically revolutionary forging,” advancing political rectification through the “spirit of rectification,” asserting that “the control of weapons must always be in the hands of those loyal and reliable to the Party.”
The rectification movement in Yan’an was initiated by Mao Zedong, a political campaign to settle political opponents and solidify Mao’s leadership within the party, earning a reputation for its brutality.
Yuan Zongji stated that the CCP’s military build-up is modeled after the Soviet Union, where the military is led by the party, or in other words, the military is politicized. The party-led military has two pillars: first, it emphasizes political loyalty; second, politics take precedence over military matters, where every use of force is based on political considerations before military ones, ensuring that military actions can only be taken under conditions where there is a political advantage.
“Xi Jinping’s recent convening of this political work conference is intended to emphatically reinforce the priority of politics and loyalty. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) must adhere to Xi’s ideological core.”
Shen Mingshi expressed that whether a military controlled by the party possesses combat capabilities is questionable. For the party to control the military, extensive political and ideological work is required, which can detract from training time. Moreover, since the party controls the military, through security systems or political commissars closely monitoring key leaders or soldiers, their autonomy and creativity decrease.
“Focusing solely on following the party’s arrangements, departing from a military professional perspective and prioritizing politics can lead to significant problems. In the past, the CCP has repeated this mistake many times, where external leaders overrule those with military expertise or excessively politicize decisions, resulting in military failures.”
Analysts believe that all of the CCP’s purges are actually a result of CCP’s one-party dictatorship and the lack of public oversight over the CCP military. While the CCP is determined to combat corruption, corruption itself is a product of its governance system.
Yuan Zongji stated that Xi Jinping has always used anti-corruption as a pretext for factional purges, a common tactic used by the PLA to deceive the public, merely using anti-corruption as a cover. The subsequent purges and clampdowns will undoubtedly be interconnected.
“The rumors now suggest that Xi wants to eliminate remnants of other factions. If they were to continue investigating Wei Fenghe and move upwards, it would likely reach Zhang Youxia, but recent reports suggest they will not look any further upwards. If they only investigate this faction, it indirectly confirms that the anti-corruption campaign is just a facade for internal power struggles or settling scores within the military.”
Shen Mingshi added that the CCP will not cease its purging efforts nor will it stop continuously conducting such operations. This is mainly due to its internal sense of insecurity, the instability of its regime, which includes societal unrest, economic decline, or external isolation.
He pointed out that Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe have many subordinates. If the investigations continue downwards, will the results of subsequent investigations be made public? Although Zhang Youxia has a close relationship with Xi Jinping, is he implicated in corruption himself? If individuals like Wei Fenghe or Li Shangfu admit to giving money to Zhang Youxia, how will Zhang Youxia be dealt with?
“At the expanded meeting of the Central Military Commission in Yan’an, aside from warning Zhang Youxia and other members of the Military Commission, it was also conveyed that investigations into retired generals and other high-ranking officials will not cease, implying that retirement does not absolve them of scrutiny.”