Chinese President Xi Jinping has established full control over the People's Liberation Army, expanding his options for a possible invasion of Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal writes.
According to the journal, in the past three years, the Chinese leader has removed five of the six top generals. A key incident was the arrest of General Zhang Yuxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a close ally of Xi Jinping, whom he has known since childhood. His removal, announced on January 24, effectively deprived China's military leadership of figures capable of constraining the Chinese leader's decisions, the article said.
Zhang Yuxia is officially suspected of "serious violations of party discipline and state law", including corruption and leaking classified information. However, analysts do not rule out that the disagreement focused on the timing of China's military readiness for a possible scenario around Taiwan: Xi Jinping insisted on achieving combat readiness by 2027, while Zhang Yuxia is aiming for a later date - around 2035.
Despite military modernization, Beijing is focused on "sophisticated coercion" against Taiwan in the near future, rather than a direct invasion, the newspaper said. This includes large-scale military exercises simulating a naval and air blockade of the island, cyberattacks, economic pressure and the so-called "legal war" - the use of Chinese law against Taiwanese officials.
Experts believe that the concentration of power "in one hand" increases the risk of strategic error. At the same time, Beijing is convinced that the US determination to defend Taiwan is weakening, especially with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. This, according to the Chinese leadership, creates an opportunity to increase pressure on the island without open conflict.
The Telegraph also writes that the purges in the army are provoked primarily by Xi Jinping's desire to transform the second largest army in the world into a modern, combat-ready force, ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 and overtake the United States as the world's leading army by 2049. In his recent speeches, General Yuxia praised the army's "collective leadership", thus "dealing a blow to the principle of loyalty to one person", the publication states.
The charges against the general may be related not only to corruption, but also to disloyalty, The New York Times emphasized. Experts believe that this may be a "personal betrayal" by Xi Jinping.
Joe Biden's former national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, compared the resignation of General Zhang Yuxia to a “seismic event“. The fact that Xi Jinping “removed someone with whom he had such a long history is astonishing and raises a lot of questions,” he said. Sullivan met with Zhang Yuxia in Beijing in 2024. According to him, the general did not seem concerned about his position.