Jiang Lin is a former lieutenant colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and a former reporter for the PLA Daily.
With Baosheng Guo, she has written an article presenting her view of what Xi Jinping may be aiming to do about Taiwan in light of his sweeping purges of the military (Jamestown Foundation, October 2, 2026).
The fate of one general, Zhang Youxia (shown above with Xi in earlier days), formerly at the apex of the PLA hierarchy, has gotten special attention. The motives behind the long-drawn-out purging of this once close colleague of Xi are hard to get at. There is little public information “about the precise nature of Zhang’s crimes—political or otherwise.”
But it does seem that Zhang’s crimes were “ultimately political in nature.”
Parallels
The purge of Zhang and other “disagreeable generals” may have to do with Xi’s “dissatisfaction over both the readiness and willingness of senior officers to stage operations targeting Taiwan.” The authors compare Xi’s purges to Hitler’s purge of disagreeable generals in 1938, before his aggression against Austria and Czechoslovakia; a purge by Mao in the years before his invasion of India in 1962; and, after 1989, the leadership’s purging of key generals and perhaps some 3,500 other officers for disobeying orders related to the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
And Xi wants Taiwan.
Unification with Taiwan has been of central importance to Xi since he first came to power. From the start, his principal political objective, which he referred to as the “China dream,” had subsuming Taiwan as its main military component. Responsibility for that component of Xi’s agenda falls principally on the PLA. The enormous reforms he launched to both the military and other Party and state institutions during his first term, and his successful efforts to amend the constitution and allow for indefinite tenure as state president, were intended to mobilize the entire system toward the achievement of this primary political objective.
The massive purges seen throughout the PLA in recent years very likely relate to what Xi views as a lack of meaningful progress toward attaining this goal, as others have argued….
The purge of Zhang and other senior figures most likely represented a clash between Xi’s political strategy and a military community that was cautious about a potential war over Taiwan. When the absolute authority of a Leninist party comes into conflict with the physical realities of modern, professional warfare, this is the only possible resolution if the regime is to persist….
Xi promoted certain officers who had worked under him during his years in the Fujian province
because he thought they understood the Strait and would obey his command, [and] he expected them to build a fast, powerful force using modern brigades that could quickly disable Taiwan. In a system that demands absolute loyalty, their subsequent claims of immature technology or a lack of readiness were reinterpreted as double-dealing and deliberate deception….
The final target, Zhang Youxia, shared key traits with the purged Fujian-faction generals on Taiwan strategy issues….
Xi’s purge appears to be a decisive victory of political will over military professionalism….
Though Xi’s purge reduces the short-term probability of a kinetic conflict as promoted officers familiarize themselves with their new billets, gray-zone warfare is likely to continue to escalate. The greatest danger is that the information cocoon created by submissive subordinates, coupled with Xi’s arbitrary exercise of power, creates the conditions that make war across the Taiwan Strait increasingly likely once the new PLA leadership team is formed.
Other observers have offered similar speculations. (Also different ones. Some argue that it was Zhang, not Xi, who ousted some of Xi’s cronies within the military, and that prior to his arrest Zhang and others had been contemplating a coup.)
Xi’s next move
Maybe Xi’s plans must remain a mystery until they become all too obvious. If he has plans. Maybe he has no idea of what he will do about Taiwan aside from what he is already doing: continuing to intensify threats and normalize incursions in the hope that one day, blam, the Republic of China will have been conquered without anybody having noticed the transition. But the Taiwanese won’t let it be that easy.
Also see:
China Power: “The Extent of the Purges”
Foreign Affairs: “China’s Purges Are Working as Designed: A Unique Discipline System Has Helped the Party Endure”
Lhasa Spring: “In the spring of 1989, a reporter from the PLA Daily [Jiang Lin] in Lhasa”
