Xi Jinping purges the army

With Washington significantly caught off guard in the transition of power, China's supreme leader, Xi Jinping (), is intensifying his anti-corruption campaign against top military officials.

At first glance, the move appears to be consistent with the emphasis on the need to strengthen military preparedness for a possible all-out military invasion of Taiwan, as the military must be well-disciplined and free of corruption.

However, upon closer inspection, a series of purges of several top military officials since last year raises the question of what dynamics played behind this anomaly.

Specifically, General Wei Fenghe () and his immediate successor, Li Shangfu (), were removed from their positions as Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other high-level party military positions , then stripped of their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for corruption. and disciplinary infraction. Most recently, Li's immediate successor, Admiral Dong Jun, was reportedly once again suspended from duty and is under investigation for disciplinary infractions.

Additionally, Admiral Miao Hua (), who is one of the seven members of the CCP Central Military Commission, suffered a very similar fate.

It is well known that the communist regime suffers from entrenched structural corruption, driven by cronyism, reinforced by the Confucian tradition in which the most prosperous member of the family is obliged to materially care for the entire clan. Naturally, it is difficult to find someone who is not corrupt among the leaders of the regime, as demonstrated by the case of former Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (), who has long been considered the most honest leader, as evidenced by the so-called Panama Papers. .

It is not surprising that the anti-corruption campaign is popular given the growing public resentment against corrupt leaders. This is explained in particular by the fact that, in a context of worsening depression, Xi adopted the political line of common prosperity while combining his campaign with redistribution from the rich to the poor. In reality, until Xi's personal dictatorial power was consolidated, the campaign primarily targeted his main political rivals and key faction figures, serving as his arbitrary instrument of power struggle.

Yet these military leaders are neither Xi's rivals nor key figures in their faction. Rather, the leaders are Xi's hand-picked protégés. This strongly suggests that both admirals acted according to the professional interests of the military. Most tellingly, they nevertheless became the main targets of Xi's purges.

It is well known that Xi has emphasized the central importance of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the event of all-out war in Taiwan, with sustained priority in budget allocation. Given Xi's firm grip on the Central Military Commission and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, inter-service rivalry between the navy and army over budget allocation can hardly explain the purges.

The most likely explanation is that the admirals are opposed to an all-out war on Taiwan in which the PLAN would suffer total defeat at the hands of the U.S. and Japanese navies, resulting in heavy losses, as simulated in several war games conducted by large groups Western and Japanese reflection.

Indeed, the American naval forces have the most advanced weaponry in the world and the richest combat experience, while the Japanese naval forces have advanced weapons and very sophisticated training with the American forces. On the other hand, the PLAN forces, like the Air Force, have no real combat experience since its creation, despite its quantitative superiority, at least for a short and limited war focused on the theater from Taiwan.

The PLA has a history of de facto defeat in the 1979 war against Vietnam.

This is probably why Xi carried out sequential purges to discipline the military's reluctance and veiled sabotage of a war in Taiwan. The need for discipline has rapidly increased, as time is running out for Xi to realize the Chinese dream of a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, particularly through the unification of Taiwan. With the recent bursting of a gigantic asset bubble and deteriorating demographic burden, China's economy has already reached its peak. This could force Xi to fight a war while the country still has temporary quantitative superiority in military hardware backed by existing overproduction capacity and other necessary economic power.

With this in mind, it is necessary to understand the significance of the recent unprecedented maritime activities from December 9-11, with approximately 60 PLAN large surface combatants and around 30 Chinese coast guard major vessels deployed in the East and South China Seas. and the wider Western Pacific. The move was a repeated naval blockade against Taiwan, unlike the PLA's several large-scale joint naval and air live-fire exercises over the past two years.

Given its pacifist constitutional constraints, military action by Japan against a blockade of Taiwan is highly unlikely, as it is not an unprovoked armed attack on Japan. Japan can only exercise its limited right of collective self-defense with the United States in the Taiwan theater if the country faces situations that threaten its survival. Without Japan's rear and logistical support, the United States may not be willing to carry out armed intervention.

The above maritime activities could be a well-calibrated move by the PLAN in which the PLA's reluctance towards Xi's adventurism has surfaced.

Analyzing the secret conflict between Xi and the military is inherently an intellectual conjecture, since it remains largely in a black box. Still, the risks of Xi's adventurism are real, which is why Washington, Tokyo and Taipei would do better to prepare for the worst now rather than later.

Masahiro Matsumura is Professor of International Politics and National Security at the School of Law at St Andrews University in Osaka, Japan, and was a Taiwan Fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies in Taipei.