2025 recorded an unprecedented purge of China’s top military and political leadership, that continued up to the penultimate day of the year, December 30, taking the tally up to “65 tigers" – high-level officials – the largest number in any year since the commencement of the anti-corruption campaign in 2012 and, on some accounts, since the beginning of China’s era of reforms in 1978.

Central to the purge has been the most extensive and consequential changes in the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army, with a raft of top officers removed, disappeared from public view, investigated and expelled from the military and from the Chinese Communist Party.

In a single announcement on October 17, nine top generals were expelled for “serious violations", including the abuse of power for personal gain and a “total collapse of beliefs".

Key military leaders who have been removed through 2025 include He Weidong, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), a Politburo member, and China’s second-highest ranking general who commanded strategy and operations around Taiwan. Weidong was a Xi loyalist who disappeared from public view in March 2025, and was formally expelled in October. With him went Miao Hua, Director of the CMC’s Political Work Department and a former navy admiral,........

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