A purge at the highest ranks of China’s missile forces

Two missing generals who had commanded China’s missile forces have been replaced, fanning suspicions of the largest purge at the top echelons of the country’s military in a decade.

General Lǐ Yùchāo 李玉超, who headed the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), and his deputy General Liú Guāngbīn 刘光斌 had disappeared from public view several months ago. State media reported yesterday that Wáng Hòubīn 王厚斌, deputy commander of the PLA Navy since 2020, will take Li’s position, while air force officer and party central committee member Xú Xīshèng 徐西盛 will become the Rocket Force’s new political commissar.

What’s going on behind the scenes?

We asked Neil Thomas, Fellow for Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, a few questions about the apparent purge:

Who lost their jobs (or disappeared) and who was promoted? What do we know about them?

We know that Wang Houbin and Xu Xisheng are respectively the new commander and political commissar of the PLARF. What’s unusual is that both PLARF leaders — the commander, who oversees military operations, and the political commissar, who oversees political discipline and ideological instruction — were replaced at the same time. And that neither Wang nor Xu appears to have any background in the PLARF. Wang spent his career in the PLA Navy, and is the first outsider to serve as PLARF commander since at least 1982, according to the political scientist Taylor Fravel. Xu comes to the PLARF from the PLA Air Force.

We also know that Wang’s predecessor Li Yuchao has not made a public appearance in several weeks and has been absent from recent promotion ceremonies that he would normally be expected to attend. It also appears that Li’s former deputies Liu Guangbin and Zhāng Zhènzhōng 张振中 are missing from their regular duties. Former PLARF deputy commander Wú Guóhuá 吴国华 died in Beijing on July 4, but news of his demise mysteriously did not appear in the mainland media until July 27.

Can you explain why you see this as evidence of a purge?

We will only know for sure what is happening when the Communist Party decides to announce something, but this personnel reshuffle seems consistent with widespread rumors in Beijing that Xi has approved a corruption investigation against senior PLARF leaders.

The story has been going around Taiwanese media and overseas Chinese media for several weeks, and last Friday the South China Morning Post quoted two anonymous sources saying the same. If true, Xi’s approval of the investigation means that Li, Liu, and Zhang will almost certainly be purged. That the PLARF’s new leaders are both outsiders also suggests that Xi wants to clean house and does not trust the force’s leadership.

Does this reshuffling tell us anything about the PLA under Xi Jinping and his progress at ensuring loyalty to the Party and to him?

The reshuffle shows that Xi is still firmly in control of the PLA but that it is very difficult to eliminate corruption, even for a leader as powerful as Xi.

That there is still corruption in China after Xi began his anti-corruption campaign is no surprise. Corruption can happen in any military, including that of the United States. And Xi himself is constantly reminding fellow cadres the Communist Party will “forever be on the journey” of anti-corruption. The seniority of the people implicated in this case is unusual, but I don’t think it suggests growing resistance in the PLA to Xi as leader of the Communist Party. It seems more venal than political.

Does this reshuffle have any implications for his much-advertised campaign to modernize the PLA?

It’s hard to say right now what impact this reshuffle will have on PLA modernization, especially without knowing more about what the alleged corruption involved. It certainly raises questions about the extent to which corruption may have compromised the quality and readiness of China’s missile forces and its nuclear deterrent.

But Beijing has been pumping a lot of money into the PLARF during Xi’s leadership, so China’s reported progress in these areas is probably still real, even if there has been some loss around the edges due to corruption.