In latest purge, Xi set to fire China’s top six generals

In the latest purge, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has set in motion the firing of China’s top six generals, including commanders of critical cyberspace and logistics forces along with the general in charge of equipment procurement for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The most senior officer to be sacked is Air Force General Xu Xueqiang, who holds the dual role of Director of the Equipment Development Department (EDD), which tests and procures military equipment, and head of the Manned Space Programme.

Over the past four years, Xi has purged at least 104 generals, including 47 four-star officers, with 62 being dismissed in the past year alone, according to the China Military Tracker run by Anushka Saxena of the Takshashila Institution.

In the latest episode, the National People’s Congress (NPC) —China’s rubber-stamp parliament— has terminated the memberships of six top generals. The termination is the first step in the purge, followed by expulsion from the Communist Party (CPC) and, finally, a formal investigation by military prosecutors.

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In addition to Xu, Zhang Minghua, who heads the Cyberspace Force, and Wang Kangping, commander of the Joint Logistics Support Force, have also had their NPC memberships terminated.

Xu’s dismissal further reinforces the EDD’s position as a focal point of Xi’s purge, with three consecutive chiefs now having been removed.

Xu’s immediate predecessors, Zhang Youxia and Li Shangfu, were both purged. Li later served as China’s defence minister but was unceremoniously dismissed and subsequently sentenced to death after being found guilty on corruption charges.

The EDD is at the centre of a spiralling corruption scandal first reported in 2023. The scandal extends from the EDD to state-owned enterprises such as the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (Avic), China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), and China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), and involves alleged irregularities in the testing, approval, and procurement of military equipment. The heads of all these organisations were also dismissed earlier this year.

Has Xi scored a self-goal with the military purge?

In her Eye on China newsletter, Saxena noted that while such removals make room for cleaner and undoubtedly more loyal officials, “it is harder to argue that decapitating the sitting commanders of one’s cyber and joint logistics forces in the same week leaves the informatisation and modernisation projects unharmed”.

“Removing this many commanders at once also cannot help cohesion, trust, or the rehearsed jointness that would matter in a combat operation on the horizon. Further, it complicates the will to fight even where it leaves the material basis intact,” Saxena further said.

While the CPC has maintained that the purge is aimed at cleansing the state machinery of corrupt and inefficient officials, analysts argue that Xi has systematically removed critics, political opponents, and ideologically divergent officials to consolidate power and ensure ideological conformity and personal loyalty under in the guise of an anti-corruption drive.

Xi’s purge has hollowed out the Chinese military leadership and disrupted efforts to increase jointness, ensure round-the-clock combat preparedness, and accelerate modernisation. The situation is such that the seven-member Central Military Commission (CMC), the body responsible for overseeing the Chinese military, is now down to just two members —Chairman Xi and Vice-Chairman Zhang Shengmin— as all the others have been sacked.