China’s military command body issues rules that marginalize Xi Jinping’s authority

The missing sentences indicate a factional struggle over who controls the army.

In the CCP’s political culture, “rectification campaigns” (zhengfeng) are not routine administrative exercises. Historically, they have been launched when senior leaders have failed to consolidate control, when internal divisions are contested, and when one side must impose loyalty on subordinates who have not yet chosen sides. A ruler who has already acquired unquestioned authority does not need a rectification campaign; rectification is the tool of a leader who is still fighting to achieve it. The new directive fits into this model. The emphasis on “collective leadership of Party committees” is particularly revealing. During periods when Xi was at his peak, official military communications instead referred to the “CMC chairman accountability system,” a formulation that focuses authority on Xi personally. The phrase “collective leadership” has been functionally suppressed in Xi-era military discourse precisely because it dilutes individual command authority. Its reappearance in a document released by the CMC is a deliberate reaffirmation by forces that want to prevent Xi from recentralizing his personal control.

The 26 provisions appear to be intended to set, through formal regulatory language, the rules governing how senior military officers, likely at the rank of major general and above, can be promoted, transferred, assigned duties and dismissed, so that no single leader can make these decisions unilaterally.

CCP elders operating through shadow council block Xi’s return to military control

Tang’s argument is that the directive did not come from Xi. Its real author, he claims, is a body known as the “Central Decision-Making Awareness and Coordination Mechanism,” an informal but authoritative council composed of senior CCP officials operating outside the formal Party structure. Tang views this body as the operational successor to Deng Xiaoping’s Central Advisory Commission, the vehicle through which Deng, after formally resigning from office, retained ultimate veto power over Party affairs and used it to remove two general secretaries, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang.

According to Tang, the coordination mechanism was established on July 1, 2025, with an explicit mandate to “deliberate on major affairs, discuss major issues, and supervise major decisions,” while also pledging to “coordinate without substitution and reach positions without overstepping.” Tang interprets this formulation as a division of authority: Xi manages the Party’s day-to-day operations, but all decisions of strategic importance require approval from the council of elders.

The Mechanism’s influence on military affairs is, at present, unusually direct. The CMC normally functions as a seven-member body. After the 2023-2024 wave of military purges, which swept away figures such as Zhang Youxia, the former vice chairman of the CMC, and Liu Zhenli, the former chief of staff of the Army’s Joint Staff Department, only two members remain: Xi himself and Zhang Shengmin, a CMC member responsible for overseeing discipline. With the corps thus depleted, the council of elders effectively holds a casting vote on all major military decisions, as there is no quorum of Xi loyalists to override it.

According to Tang, current military commanders are well aware that Xi wants to reassert his personal control and that this would likely mean purging officers who owed their positions to Zhang Youxia’s patronage network. Faced with this threat, they calculated that it was safer to align with the council of elders rather than Xi. The new directive is the institutional expression of this alignment: an attempt to formalize, in binding regulations, a system of collective decision-making that Xi cannot unilaterally dismantle.

Xi is blocked through official channels, but extralegal steps remain possible

Tang’s conclusion is straightforward. Xi’s April 8 participation in the senior military cadre training class was an attempt to reassert his personal military authority through his formal institutional role. The response, a CMC directive that strips this role of its key prerogatives and buries the vocabulary of loyalty on which Xi depends, amounts to a formal rebuff delivered by the official state apparatus he nominally leads. Xi’s path to regain direct military command through institutional procedures is now closed.

Tang adds a qualification. Xi is not Hua Guofeng, the transitional leader who succeeded Mao Zedong and was removed from power through institutional maneuvering without serious resistance. Xi has shown a willingness to use surprise and force when institutions work against him, as demonstrated by the sudden expulsions of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli. Tang does not rule out that Xi could act against the council of elders or individual military commanders through equally extralegal means.