In what could be the most dangerous developments in the world today, the Chinese military is tearing itself apart.

Xi Jinping has been purging officers for more than a decade. But other officers, it appears, are now purging Xi’s loyalists. The main propaganda organ of the People’s Liberation Army is printing pieces openly criticizing his rule.

The Chinese military is apparently embroiled in its worst crisis since Marshal Lin Biao died in a mysterious plane crash in 1971. Lin fled either after a failed coup attempt or after being blamed for one.

Gen. He Weidong, the number three-ranked uniformed officer, was reportedly detained on March 11, after the end of Beijing’s major political event of the year, the so-called Two Sessions. So far, there is no confirmation of the initial report on this by citizen journalist Zhao Lanjian.

“Gen. He was instrumental in Xi’s earlier purges in the military, so his disappearance, if confirmed, could indicate a great threat to Xi’s authority,” Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me.

The news of the disappearance of He, the second vice chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission and former commander of the all-important........

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