There seems to be a striking similarity between the large-scale purge in China’s military since 2022 by President Xi Jinping and those by Stalin in the Red Army in the years before the Nazi invasion of Soviet Union in 1941. 

Stalin’s purges left the Soviet military command structure totally demoralised and historians have blamed them for the severe reverses initially suffered by the Red Arm. Now, many who closely follow China’s rise as a military power think Xi’s extensive purge has had a somewhat similar and severe impact on the country’s military higher command.

A detailed report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says 36 generals and lieutenant generals have been officially purged since 2022, with another 65 listed as missing, meaning they are potentially purged. The report says 52 percent of the top 176 positions in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been affected. Ten members of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), including four vice- chairmen, have been sacked. 

Worse still, there seems to be no closure as reports of more purges in late February were coming in at the time of writing. 19 officials, including nine from the military, have been removed from the list of lawmakers ahead of its biggest annual political meeting next week.

The removals were announced by the country’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

No official reason has been given, but it comes just weeks after President Xi Jinping removed Zhang Youxia, his highest-ranking general and also one of his closest military allies, from his role.

According to a report by state media outlets, those removed include Li Qiaoming, commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Ground Force and Shen Jinlong, a former PLA Navy commander.

Also on the list were several other military officers and a number of provincial officials including Sun Shaochong, the former party chief of the Inner Mongolia region.

It comes just weeks after Zhang was removed from his post, after he was accused of “serious violations of discipline and law” – typically a euphemism for corruption.

“The unprecedented purge in the top military leadership raises serious questions about the PLA’s readiness and capability to carry out complex military operations,” the CSIS report says.

The sacking of top military officers in China is not new. “However, the latest round leaves all military members out of the nodal Central Military Commission (CMC), barring Gen Zhang Shengmin, who is known for his political rather than combat work,” says India’s leading Sinologist Srikanth Kondapalli. “Today, China has no full-fledged higher military command.” 

The targeting of top-ranking generals like Zhang Youxia and joint operations chief Liu Zhenli may have grabbed headlines in January. But since the purge was gone deeper into the command structure, it has left President Xi Jinping with a shrinking pool of capable and experienced officers to replace those purged. In any case, the PLA command structure has a glaring shortage of senior officers with active combat experience. The last major war China fought was 47 years ago — in Vietnam. 

This scale of the purges have been described as “striking and extraordinary” by Taylor Fravel, one of the authors of the CSIS report. “The purges demonstrated the depth of Xi’s campaign and the unprecedented churn in the PLA leadership,” wrote Fravel, who is also director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 

Theatre Commands Impacted

Nowhere is the impact of the purges more striking than at the level of the PLA’s regional commands. Since 56 deputy theatre commanders have been purged, the PLA is finding it difficult to find a capable candidate to take over one of the five theatre commands. The pool for capable candidates to take over key combat command positions have shrunk sharply. 

Bonny Lin, another author of the CSIS report, says the purges might have already been reflected in PLA readiness. She made a significant observation over the PLA’s exercises around Taiwan in response to “problematic” behavior by the self-governing island and linked it to the serious gaps in the ‘Higher Directions of War.’ In 2024, such exercises took just four days to organise, compared to 19 days and 12 days on two occassions in 2025. 

Gen Zhang Youxia’s spat with President Xi Jinping may have much to do with differences over the proposed invasion of Taiwan. As vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Zhang reportedly favored a more cautious approach, with training schedules that did not align with Xi’s 2027 goal for a final military thrust. Analysts have suggested that Zhang, a veteran, believed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was not adequately prepared for the complexities of a Taiwan invasion, putting him at odds with Xi’s push for a faster, more aggressive timeline. In January 2026, it was announced that Zhang Youxia was under investigation for “serious disciplinary and legal violations,” a move seen as a major shake-up of the CMC.  

Such reported differences are not uncommon between political leaders thriving on muscular nationalism and military professionals. The latest such spat has been reported from the US, where President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for military action against Iran has not been shared by senior commanders including the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Dan Caine. Interestingly, Gen Zhang Youxia was initially as much of a Xi Jinping favorite as Gen. Caine has been of Donald Trump.  

The consequences of politicians overruling professional military opinion can be disastrous. Germany’s defeat in the Second World War has often been blamed on Hitler frequently overruling his gifted generals like Erwin Rommel or Eric Von Manstein. 

Back home, Nehru’s disastrous “Forward Policy” without adequate military preparations led to the disastrous 1962 border war with China. On the other hand, Indira Gandhi ruled out her civilian advisers pressing for a military intervention in East Pakistan in early 1971 because the refugee burden was becoming unbearable for the Indian economy. She listened to army chief Gen Sam Manekshaw, who wanted six months to prepare for an Indian victory. Sam ‘Bahadur’ delivered on his promise, but only because he had his way with Madam Gandhi. 

© Eurasia Review