China’s Military Purge Expands as 46 Senior Officers Lose Legislature Seats

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) purge of its military leadership has intensified, with at least 46 senior officers publicly stripped of their seats in China’s rubber-stamp legislature over the past three years, including 22 generals at the rank of full general.

The latest removals include two of the Chinese regime’s most senior military officials—Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and Liu Zhenli, a member of the CMC and chief of the Joint Staff Department. Zhang and Liu were placed under investigation in January.

Their removal from the national legislature came on Aug. 28, when the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee announced via state media Xinhua News Agency that the representative credentials of 12 officials had been revoked. Four were military officers, including Zhang; Liu; Ju Gansheng, the former commander of the Strategic Support Force; and Zhong Shaojun, the former political commissar of the National Defense University and director of the CMC’s General Office.

The move came as the Standing Committee also announced that Zhang had been removed as a vice chairman of the CMC and Liu as a member of the CMC.

The latest actions underscore the depth of a leadership shake-up that has swept through the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with senior commanders from virtually every major branch of the military caught up in the purge.

Two months earlier, on June 26, the NPC Standing Committee announced the termination of the representative credentials of 14 officials. Six were senior military officers.

The officers had been selected as representatives to China’s rubber-stamp legislature during the current five-year term, which began in 2023 and has not yet concluded.

Public information shows that 46 senior military officers have been removed from the 14th NPC during the past three years. The 46 officers include 22 full generals, 18 lieutenant generals, and six major generals.

Among the most prominent figures stripped of their NPC positions are several CMC members and commanders of major military services.

The group of 22 full generals includes Zhang and Liu, as well as former commission member Miao Hua, former Defense Minister Li Shangfu, former Rocket Force commander Li Yuchao, former air force commander Ding Laihang, former navy commander Shen Jinke, former navy political commissar Qin Shengxiang, former army commander Li Qiaoming, and former Western Theater Command political commissar Li Fengbiao.

The removals span the PLA’s major services and theater commands, showing that the disciplinary campaign has not been confined to a single branch or isolated group of commanders.

Many of the generals caught up in the purge rose through the ranks in the years since Xi Jinping became the CCP’s top leader in 2012. Their removal has therefore raised questions about the loyalty and reliability of a military leadership that Xi has spent more than a decade reshaping.

Xi also serves as chairman of the CMC, giving him direct control over the PLA’s top command structure.

The repeated removal of senior military officials from the national legislature is significant because an NPC seat is not simply a legislative position. The legislature is the regime’s highest state institution, and its representatives are selected through a tightly controlled political system. Losing a representative position can therefore serve as a public indication that an official has fallen from political favor or is under investigation.

The public disclosure of the removals provides only a partial picture of the campaign. The CCP typically does not immediately disclose the full circumstances surrounding the removal of senior military officials, leaving the reasons for many of the personnel changes unclear.

Nevertheless, the growing number of generals losing their legislative seats points to an unusually extensive turnover among China’s military elite.