Analysts are calling it China’s biggest military purge in roughly half a century: President Xi Jinping has placed his second-in-command, China’s top general, under investigation. Shanshan Mei, who specializes in Chinese defense policy at RAND, speaks with The World’s Marco Werman about the scope of the ongoing purge and what it reveals about the stability of Xi’s regime. The post China’s stunning military purge appeared first on The World from PRX.
A widening purge of the Chinese military is reshaping its senior command.
Over the weekend, the country’s defense ministry said the highest-ranking general in the People’s Liberation Army was under investigation for “grave violations of discipline and the law.”
Zhang Youxia, 75, is a combat veteran and was seen as a close ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to the Wall Street Journal, he’s being accused of leaking nuclear secrets to the United States.
Shanshan Mei, who studies China’s armed forces at RAND, joined The World’s Marco Werman to discuss what this means.
Marco Werman: What are the implications for the Chinese military?
Shanshan Mei: To me, this almost feels like an emperor has no clothes moment for the PLA.
Hmm, PLA being the People’s Liberation Army.
Indeed, as we’ve been looking and reading about the PLA, we think a lot of emphasis and media attention have been placed on the drastic modernization China has achieved. In fact, even as recently as September, they just put on another big show of a big military so-called Victory Day, parading all the most advanced, sophisticated, modern equipment. But the reason why I say it’s an emperor’s no clothes moment is that the accusations that have been placed on two top generals over the weekend have really revealed that in terms of military personnel and military leadership, there were huge problems, huge holes exist … but have not attracted enough attention. So, this is big.
And what about these charges reported by the Wall Street Journal that General Zhang was working for the CIA and leaking nuclear secrets? Do those allegations have any credibility?
From my personal perspective, I have quite some doubts about allegations like that. We never know. Chinese politics is notoriously black box. And the second point I really want to make is … I doubt this … mainly because General Zhang Youxia is 75 years old. I think he has, what, 60-plus years of his life spent within the PLA. Someone at that level and that kind of experience, life experience, dedicated to the PLA, it just doesn’t make sense to me that he would be someone to sell out state or military secrets, whatsoever, in exchange for money and gains.
Tell us more about Zhang Youxia, the top general dismissed this weekend. Who is he?
He is currently China’s top uniformed military leader, sort of equivalent to the US chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. General Zhang Youxia is a career army military officer from a very prestigious Chinese Communist Party, revolutionary family. His father, Zhang Zongxun, served alongside the revolutionary Communist Party in China’s wars for independence. Zhang was born to a general. So he’s known as, in Chinese parlance, a so-called princeling, went to elite Chinese schools … but also sort of carrying on a family tradition.
Shanshan, if you have doubts about these nuclear secrets charges, why, in your opinion, do you think Xi set Zhang Youxia aside?
I do think he is a true believer, in the sense that he believes in the importance of trying to rejuvenate the Chinese nation, but also to accelerate the modernization processes of the military. It feels very personal when Xi Jinping puts charges like that: sources coming out of China are saying that [Zhang] was possibly accused of selling out. Now this kind of labeling, well, first of all, it sounds very, very Chinese, in the sense that the Chinese Communist Party, when dealing with internal issues or problems, the number one tactic they often have is to blame outsiders. Blame mostly Americans for having a hand in causing all sorts of disturbances within Chinese politics. But in this specific case, it reads very personal in the sense that it’s almost like Xi Jinping is trying to humiliate Zhang Youxia, using really blandish and crazy accusations, such as selling out nuclear weapons secrets or things like that.
Well, none other than former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a China expert, believes that the number of Chinese government officials purged under Xi Jinping is in the hundreds of thousands. We don’t know what that number really is, but do we know how other members of the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, feel about these purges?
I think this is definitely causing quite a lot of fear. Actually, not to say, I think since Xi came to power, and over the past 10 years or so, fear has probably become a way of life for party members. But what happened this weekend, I think will even increase more fear and more risk-averse party members, but also the government officials, not just within the military, but across the entire Chinese government. I think people will be very concerned right now about who’s next, because anyone could be next. The biggest thing I think related to this is really within the PLA, given Zhang Youxia’s stature within the PLA and the deep networks he had built up all these years, through decades of service, there will be a lot of panicking. I can see that people now, you know, [are] trying to figure out ‘How am I going to preserve myself?’ And so morale, I think, is also taking a big toll.
If you look at China’s military organogram, these purges have basically hollowed out military leadership, leaving Xi Jinping at the top with a very distant subordinate. Where does this leave Xi Jinping? How unstable are things for him right now?
I honestly am very concerned about the lack of true military operational expertise at the very top. The vice chair, currently is the only one that’s left on the Central Military Commission, is a career political officer. He lacks military operational experience to advise Xi. This is really why I’m very concerned, because who’s going to advise Xi Jinping? Let’s make it wild, and when Xi wants to use nuclear weapons, he needs expert advice and really people he trusts and who knows the stuff to advise him. So, it’s unclear who is assuming that role right now from the military side.
The rumor mill, you probably know, has been rife in the past 24 hours with wild narratives about what happened: descriptions of a plot to take out Xi and an insider who betrayed the operation just before it happened. I don’t know what details you’ve been able to verify, but generally, how do you figure out what to believe given the impermeability of the so-called Great Chinese Firewall and censorship?
I have become over the years a big fan of Chinese propaganda, because I do think sometimes what the propaganda reviews, if you know that’s propaganda, then if you reverse engineer it, it actually provides quite a lot of insights. But it does take us as outside researchers and observers to very carefully monitor Chinese [content] publicly available and especially all these government official sources, the different kind of statements, speeches or propaganda mark materials such as you know, the PLA Daily, which is the top newspaper, a mouthpiece of the propaganda department of the PLA.
Well, of course, in the background, Shanshan, is the question of Taiwan. How could this dismantling and reshaping of China’s military command impact Taiwan and Beijing’s designs to get it back under its influence?
I think this is really the million-dollar question that everyone probably wants to know for sure. First point I want to make is that the unification of Taiwan is sort of the foundational mission the People’s Liberation Army was built to do. Because in Chinese eyes, the Taiwan issue or Taiwan question is an unfinished civil war that is something the military is built out to do. So, that is not changing just because of the huge change that we’re now seeing in the high military command. My second point is that, in terms of operational experience and campaign design and all sorts of execution of such a plan, if they decide to use military force, I do see in the short term, this is taking on a very significant blow. Because of morale, because of lack of expertise at the very top. It’s gonna take Xi Jinping quite some time to replace these holes that he left open now.
Finally, what do you think is going to happen to General Zhang Yuxia or his family and friends?
This is very murky. My honest answer is I don’t know, because oftentimes, again, the Chinese Communist Party operates with huge opacity, and we don’t know.
Parts of the interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The post China’s stunning military purge appeared first on The World from PRX.
