Today, Chinese President Xi’s wrath spares no one. Stepping into his second term, Xi Jinping took a public oath of allegiance to the Constitution—the first of its kind—pledging “loyalty to the country and the people, vowing to remain committed and honest in his duty”. Over time, this promise has been accompanied by an extraordinary consolidation of personal power. One of the key tools used in this process has been the flagship “anti-corruption” campaign, targeted at both high-ranking officials as well as low-level cadres across China’s civil and military establishments. In his first public address as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, Xi identified “graft and corruption” as a pressing problem within the Party that needed to be resolved urgently. Building on this agenda, in 2018, Xi established the National Supervision Commission, an anti-corruption watchdog ranked alongside the State Council and above the judiciary, institutionalising and expanding the authority of the Party’s feared Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
As a result, Xi has steadily expanded and embedded his authority across the Party, the state, and the military. By reshaping China’s political system around his leadership, Xi has elevated his official status to lingxiu (领袖)—a term best translated as ‘leader’, but carries connotations of a paramount figure. There is no heir apparent to Xi, and with the enshrinement of “Xi Jinping Thought” in the Chinese Constitution, he has effectively rewritten the rules of China’s long-standing political structure. This centralisation of authority was further formalised with the abolition of the presidential term limits, marking Xi’s unilateral reworking of Deng Xiaoping’s “collective leadership” norm—removing the last institutional constraint on his personal rule.
The former mandates safeguarding Xi’s position as the core of the Party and the CPC Central Committee’s authority and centralised, unified leadership, while the latter affirms Xi’s status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the Party and enshrines Xi Jinping Thought as the guiding ideology of the new era.
Xi has further consolidated his position and enforced personal loyalty through two political formulations: the “Two Safeguards” and “Two Establishes”. The former mandates safeguarding Xi’s position as the core of the Party and the CPC Central Committee’s authority and centralised, unified leadership, while the latter affirms Xi’s status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the Party and enshrines Xi Jinping Thought as the guiding ideology of the new era. The outcome is stark: there is no institutional immunity, and no one in the Chinese polity remains insulated from central disciplinary authority.
This logic of centralised control has been well-witnessed in the purging of the Chinese military—the central pillar of regime security and political control. The powerful seven-member CMC now appears significantly hollowed out— an unprecedented development in the history of the Commission. With the recent removal of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, the CMC has been reduced to two remaining members: Xi as the Chairman, and Zhang Shengmin as the Vice Chairman.
Within the military, the purges have been uneven, with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Rocket Force (PLARF)—China’s strategic missile arm—amongst the hardest hit. Although the Chinese government has officially cited “serious disciplinary violations”, speculation has emerged about the underlying causes behind these removals. Some media reports suggest that Zhang has been accused of leaking information about the country’s nuclear-weapons programme to the United States (US). While these claims remain unconfirmed, they nonetheless reflect broader concerns about security within the PLA’s most sensitive branch.
For Xi, China’s strategic forces are central to national power and deterrence credibility. Among the nine nuclear-armed powers, China is believed to have one of the fastest-growing nuclear arsenals at present. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ 2024 Nuclear Notebook estimates that China now has about 500 nuclear warheads, and more are being produced to equip future delivery systems. In 2015, Xi upgraded the former Second Artillery Force, which was responsible for nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles, into the PLARF, elevating it to a full-service branch of the PLA. As described by Xi, the PLARF is “China’s core force for strategic deterrence, a strategic buttress for China’s position as a major power, and an important cornerstone for defending national security.” This was followed in 2017 by a long-term modernisation plan which further sought to enhance the PLARF’s “strategic deterrence capability” through “three breakthroughs”: improving strategic containment capabilities, enhancing the level of actual combat, and strengthening the force’s strategic use. China’s 2019 Defence White Paper outlined that the PLARF is working to: enhance its credible and reliable capabilities of nuclear deterrence and counterattack, strengthen intermediate and long-range precision strike forces, and enhance strategic counter-balance capability, to build a strong and modernised rocket force. Xi’s approach reflects Deng Xiaoping’s view that nuclear force enhancements were necessary “to earn more say and a higher international status in a coming world order”.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ 2024 Nuclear Notebook estimates that China now has about 500 nuclear warheads, and more are being produced to equip future delivery systems.
Precisely because PLARF manages China’s most sensitive capabilities, any signs of corruption, organisational weakness, or information leaks pose significant strategic risks. This explains Xi’s targeted purges within PLARF, with multiple commanders and political commissars removed.
The timing of these purges needs attention. A 2022 report by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), affiliated with the U.S. Air Force University, which exposed detailed information about PLARF, raised questions about possible leaks of Chinese military secrets to the US. The implications of this were reflected in Xi’s purging of senior leaders (listed below) of the Rocket Force beginning in 2023.
Source: Compiled with reference to data from The Jamestown Foundation and ORF
The purge has not been confined to the military command structure; it has also extended into China’s defence industrial base. Several senior officials linked to the military-industrial sector were removed between 2023 and 2024 in connection with corruption in Rocket Force military equipment, as noted below.
Source: Compiled with reference to data from The Jamestown Foundation
In 2026, further removals reportedly included Liu Cangli, a long-time nuclear-weapons researcher, and Luo Qi, chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corp. These removals indicate that the anti-corruption campaign has targeted not only military personnel but also key figures within the defence industrial base responsible for the development and supply of strategic systems.
These developments, thereby, indicate that Xi’s anti-corruption drive, particularly against the Rocket Force, is not merely a disciplinary campaign but a systemic action to reassert political control. The crackdown across the PLARF’s command structure and China’s defence industrial base point to Xi’s dual objective: safeguarding regime security while ensuring the loyalty, reliability, and operational integrity of China’s strategic arm.
Amrita Jash is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Institute of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Institution of Eminence), India
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