‘Tigers and flies’: Xi’s purges and what they mean for Taiwan

CHINA

No coup, no spies – the latest crackdown is about discipline, delivery and avoiding Russia’s mistakes.

XI Jinping is purging China’s generals in the shadow of Russia’s battlefield failures – and the lesson he appears to be drawing is that corruption can lose wars.

It follows the investigation of General Zhang Youxia, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and CMC Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli for “serious disciplinary and legal offences”.

Claims that this reflects a coup attempt or nuclear espionage have circulated widely, but a new Sibylline report gives them little weight.

“This purge is about Xi reasserting control over a modernisation drive he believes is failing,” says Aédán Mordecai, Lead Asia-Pacific Analyst.

“While it may slow the PLA in the short term, it increases uncertainty and the risk of miscalculation in the longer term.”

Xi’s drive is rooted in reforms launched in 2015, aimed at building a “world-class” force by 2049, with milestones including the integration of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems by 2035 and, crucially, the ability to seize Taiwan by 2027.

One driving force for Xi, says Mordecai, may be what he has seen in Russia, where corruption has hollowed out military performance.

“How much was corruption a factor in Vladimir Putin’s belief that he could take Ukraine in a week?” he asks.

The starting point for understanding the purge is the nature of the PLA itself, according to Dean Cheng, a China specialist formerly at the Heritage Foundation.

“It is a party army – the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party,” he says. “That has distinct implications.”

What makes the current purge unusual is that both senior commanders and the political officers meant to oversee them appear to have been removed.

“If Xi no longer trusts the officers, and no longer trusts the people who certified them, then the problem is no longer just corruption,” Cheng says. “It becomes institutional.”

Zhang’s fall is especially revealing.

He is believed to have known Xi since childhood.

And, in a military with little recent battlefield experience, both he and Liu stand out as two of the few senior officers to have seen combat, serving during China’s short war with Vietnam in 1979 and its lingering aftermath.

Crucially, however, Zhang’s removal appears to be the culmination of a series of investigations stretching back to 2020.

The general reportedly backed Li Shangfu, the former defence minister purged in 2023.

A year later, year, nine generals were removed from the CMC in a reshuffle widely seen as linked to the same networks.

These networks, known as guanxi, bind senior figures to ladders of subordinates and patrons.

“When one person falls, that network comes under suspicion,” Cheng says.

Corruption inside the PLA, he adds, is endemic but uneven.

“Everybody’s tainted. But there are people who are stained by it, and there are people who are bathing in it.”

When Lieutenant General Gu Junshan was arrested in 2014, investigators seized a pure gold bust of Mao Zedong from his home, along with large sums of cash and luxury items.

First deployed during his rise to power in 2012–13, Xi’s promise to pursue both “tigers and flies” – senior figures as well as minor officials – signalled that no rank would be immune.

He has since made that approach permanent.

While his predecessors typically ran anti-corruption drives for two or three years before easing off. Xi’s campaign has run continuously since 2012 and has reached into the deep recesses of both the military and the Party leadership, reinforcing his personal control.

At the same time, the PLA has been undergoing rapid structural change.

“When the PLA reorganised, the biggest losers were the ground forces. That affects promotions – and with promotions, it affects money and other aspects of the network,” Cheng says.

The immediate impact on Taiwan is uncertain.

Theatre commands – which would run any military operation – appear less affected than the central service leadership, and training activity around Taiwan has continued.

Because few analysts expected a Chinese invasion before next year in any case, the disruption has only a muted effect on the strategic timeline.

But the upheaval does carry consequences.

In the first place, it makes China harder for outsiders to read.

That dynamic is likely to disrupt Western intelligence collection inside the PLA, as sources avoid contact and networks go quiet.

For Taiwan and its partners, that creates a more opaque picture of who is in charge and how decisions are being made.

More crucially, however, it risks reinforcing the very behaviour the purge was meant to correct.

“Doing what you are told is safe. Coming up with a new approach, a new doctrine or a new strategy could be risky, because you have no idea how it will be interpreted,” Cheng says.

For Taiwan and its partners, the danger lies less in imminent war than in distorted decision-making inside Beijing, as loyalty replaces competence and uncertainty replaces debate.

“Resorting to kinetic conflict on Taiwan would be seen as a policy failure for Beijing,” Mordecai says.

“The threat is always there, but the costs would be extremely high and the chances of success uncertain.

“What we will not know is how perceived opportunities – such as a distracted United States or a divided Europe – might affect Beijing’s calculations.”