Friday Nights Are for Bad News
Jon Welch is Senior Advisor and Practice Lead at Pamir Consulting.
On Friday, October 17, at 5:15 P.M Beijing time, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) spokesman Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang (張晓刚) announced that nine top PLA officers had been expelled from both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the military itself. According to the PLA announcement, all nine individuals were under investigation for seriously violating the party’s discipline and for misconduct involving large sums of money.
Of the nine, He Weidong (何卫东) is the most prominent. Before the Oct. 17 announcement, He was the second highest ranking official in China's military, after President Xi Jinping who is the chairman of the Central Military Commission.
A member of the 24-person Politburo and Vice Chairman of the CMC, He is the first standing member of the Politburo to have been swept up in Xi’s long-standing anti-corruption campaign.
He was also the equivalent of a four-star general in the U.S. military. Most of the others who were expelled were also four-star equivalents and members of the party's decision-making Central Committee. They include:
- Miao Hua (苗华), member of the Central Military Commission and former Director of the Political Work Department of the CMC (Admiral)
- He Hongjun (何宏军) , Executive Deputy Director of the Political Work Department of the CMC (General; reported to have died by suicide)
- Wang Xiubin (王秀斌), Executive Deputy Director of the Joint Operations Command Center of the CMC (General)
- Lin Xiangyang (林向阳), Commander of the Eastern Theater Command (General)
- Qin Shutong (秦树桐), Political Commissar of the Army (General)
- Yuan Huazhi (袁华智), Political Commissar of the Navy (Admiral)
- Wang Houbin (王厚斌), Commander of the Rocket Force (General)
- Wang Chunning (王春宁), Commander of the People’s Armed Police Force (General)
According to the Director of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) half of the PLA’s 32 four-star equivalents have not been seen in public for over six months. In several instances, individuals purged on Oct. 17 were the direct successors of people who were themselves purged previously
Prior to his appointment to the Central Military Commission, He served as commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command from 2019 to 2022. The Eastern Theater Command holds primary responsibility for operations against Taiwan in the case of a conflict between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. His successor as commander of the Eastern Theater Command from 2022, Lin Xiangyang (林向阳), was also removed on Oct. 17.
Wang Houbin, also purged on Oct. 17, was the successor to Li Yuchao (李玉超), commander of the Rocket Forces who was removed in mid-2023.
The crackdown follows smaller public purges of other military officials in recent years, including former defense ministers Wei Fenghe (魏风和) in March 2023 and his successor Li Shangfu (李尚福) in October 2024.
How the latest expulsions might impact the PLA’s warfighting capabilities is not clear.
Whether Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is a demonstration of overwhelming strength or an indication of unquenchable paranoia, we assess that it will almost certainly continue. That’s because corruption in the PRC is a feature of the system and not an aberration. In addition, Xi will not hesitate to cut off any threat — real or imagined — to his status as paramount leader.
The Oct. 17 announcement came just days before Xi, who serves concurrently as chairman of the CMC, chairman of the CCP and president of the PRC, began meeting with other CCP elites in Beijing to map out the party-state’s goals for the next five years. The signal he has sent them is unmistakable: corruption and disloyalty will not be tolerated.
The timing of the announcement, after normal business hours on a Friday evening in Beijing, suggests that the PLA spokesperson understands that burying bad news at the end of the week allows a couple of news cycles to pass over the weekend and minimizes negative publicity. It’s tough to put a positive spin on the news that half the top generals in the military of a nuclear power have gone missing and a quarter of them have just lost their jobs.
