As China’s purge of top military officials continues, will Xi’s high-stakes gamble pay off?

The recent suspension of Miao Hua is part of Xi Jinping’s efforts to modernize and tighten control of the People’s Liberation Army, but his plan carries significant risks.

Expert comment Published 3 December 2024 3 minute READ

William Matthews

Senior Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme

Last week, China’s Ministry of Defence announced that Admiral Miao Hua, a very senior figure within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has been suspended and is under investigation for ‘serious violation of discipline’. This comes soon after a report from US officials that Defence Minister Dong Jun is also under investigation (although Beijing has insisted that he remains in post). 

Both men are personal appointees of President Xi Jinping, indicating that loyalty and control of the military is more important than avoiding shorter-term instability in command structure and significant embarrassment. This reflects the seriousness with which Xi is taking his ambitions for the PLA, but also has implications for the perception of actual Chinese fighting capability abroad. 

Why is Miao Hua important?

Miao is a very significant figure within the PLA, which is a politicized force ultimately controlled by the Communist Party of China (CPC) rather than the state. The highest military body, with direct authority over the PLA, is the CPC’s Central Military Commission (CMC), of which Xi Jinping is chair. Within the CMC, Miao was responsible for senior personnel promotions and, crucially, ensuring ideological conformity. 

By suspending Miao, Xi has further demonstrated a willingness to remove a perceived loyalist at the highest levels of China’s military to ensure compliance with his political agenda, set an example and ensure the PLA develops in the direction he intends.

Miao’s predecessor was also ousted for corruption, as well as the two previous defence ministers – all picked by Xi himself. By suspending Miao, Xi has further demonstrated a willingness to remove a perceived loyalist at the highest levels of China’s military to ensure compliance with his political agenda, set an example and ensure the PLA develops in the direction he intends.

A PLA that can confront the US military

Xi has stated that the PLA should be able to ‘fight and win wars’. Given China’s geopolitical situation and designs on Taiwan, this means a military which can confidently prevail over the United States in a regional conflict. 

In terms of material capabilities, there are signs of success. China’s current military production capacity is massively greater than that of the United States, its weapon systems present real threats to US bases in the Western Pacific, and wargames repeatedly suggest that any US victory in a conflict over Taiwan – now far from guaranteed – would come at huge cost.

However, material capability is of limited use if not backed up by an effective command structure. Systemic corruption and concerns over loyalty and control have led Xi to extensive purges of the PLA and its associated industrial complex, alongside measures to restructure the PLA for an era of new military technology. 

The purge of senior figures within the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is especially notable given the strategic importance of this branch. PLARF is responsible for China’s nuclear weapons – and thus critical for credible nuclear deterrence – and for China’s land-based conventional missiles, which would be crucial in any conflict with the US. 

More widely, PLA reforms have focused on ‘informatized’ and ‘intelligentized’ warfare – a doctrine integrating AI, the cyber domain, and cognitive control across conventional air, land and sea combat. This approach is similar to those of other advanced militaries – and essential if China is to prevail in a conflict with the US. 

This new approach has required the development of new PLA branches: the Strategic Support Force (SSF), focused on information dominance, and the Joint Logistics Support Force. However, this year the SSF was dissolved to create three new branches that all sit directly under CMC control. This move indicates a desire for direct political supervision of China’s integrated strategy at the highest level. 

Together with the anti-corruption drive, of which Miao is the latest victim, this shows that in Xi’s mind, a politically compliant and minimally corrupt PLA equals a combat-ready PLA. To Xi, any short- to medium-term instability at the highest levels of the PLA command structure – and the reputational costs that incurs – is a price worth paying to achieve his goal.  

Risks to credibility

But the approach is not without significant risks. In addition to the reputational costs to Xi himself as CPC and CMC chairman, whose personal appointments suggest a pattern of misjudgement, there are consequences for how the PLA is seen by potential adversaries.

As Beijing seeks to deter US and allied involvement in a potential Taiwan conflict, any perception of a leadership unable to command effectively or keep on top of discipline risks undermining belief in the PLA’s ability to coordinate its branches and implement its doctrine effectively. 

This has the potential to increase the appetite for risk on the part of Beijing’s adversaries when it comes to confronting China’s efforts to coerce Taiwan and assert its claims in the South China Sea. 

Likewise, it could well add weight to the perception that the PLA’s lack of recent combat experience places it at a disadvantage in relation the US military. But there is a risk in overstating the degree to which US combat experience has prepared it for a conflict with a peer competitor, something Washington has not faced since the Second World War. 

While the fall of Miao Hua is the latest in a series of setbacks for Xi’s military ambitions, it is unlikely to affect Beijing’s strategy of gradually wearing down Taiwan’s resolve through grey-zone operations and intimidation. Indeed, Beijing may seek to offset perceptions of PLA incompetence through increased demonstrations of capability. This year, China has already staged two huge military exercises around Taiwan and, as Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-Te stops off in Hawaii and Guam on a trip to the South Pacific, Beijing is may well respond with a third.

Until Xi is confident that a stable, loyal and clean PLA command structure has been established, it is unlikely that he would seek to start a conflict over Taiwan.

But until Xi is confident that a stable, loyal and clean PLA command structure has been established, it is unlikely that he would seek to start a conflict over Taiwan. The importance of success would be so high, and so vital to his legitimacy, that the gamble is too risky unless the outcome is all but guaranteed.

Keeping this in mind, the US should be alive to the real risk of any shifts in its approach being perceived as an aggressive attempt to exploit PLA instability. Clarity of intent on both sides, while difficult, will help to minimize the potential for miscalculation.