Geostrategy-Direct
Amid a major purge of top military leaders, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has scaled back military drills this year in what is seen as a campaign to garner greater political loyalty, according to a briefing given to U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The loyalty “rectification” effort comes after nine key People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leaders were purged amid widespread speculation about the viability of the party and the status of Xi Jinping himself.
A senior defense official spoke to reporters in an unclassified briefing said to reflect some of the content provided to the secretary in more detail at his classified session.
The briefing provided to Hegseth during his stop in Hawaii on the first leg of a four-nation Asia-Pacific tour, revealed details on the recent firings of the Chinese military leaders who were expelled from the CCP prior to a key Party meeting in Beijing, followed by orders for military prosecutions.
The ouster of seven senior PLA generals and two high-ranking admirals, the senior official said, is a sign of broader problems of both corruption and political disloyalty within the Chinese military.
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A senior U.S. official said the battle against corruption in the PLA emanates from Chinese leaders’ fears the PLA is insufficiently under CCP control, according to security correspondent Bill Gertz.Communist officials have declared that the CCP must “control the gun,” not the opposite.
“That shouldn’t be a surprising statement to anybody, given that the PLA is the armed wing of the Communist Party,” the senior official said. “But it also reflects some uncertainty or discomfort with that relationship from the senior levels of the party.”
U.S. intelligence agencies are watching closely to see whether Xi replaces the ousted generals right away or decides to operate with a scaled-back PLA command structure.
Three of the ousted officers were part of the ultimate power organ in China – the seven-member CCP Politburo Standing Committee. Leaving their seats vacant would give Xi even greater power.
Related: CCP’s turning point? 9 senior military officers purged on eve of Fourth Plenum, October 21, 2025
The four-day Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Congress of the CCP concluded on Oct 23, 2025, with the intention of all principals in the event to show that it was business-as-usual, focusing on the 15th Five-Year Plan, wrote strategist Gregory Copley. Nothing could have been further from the truth, he added.
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