A major political meeting of the Chinese Communist Party this week was preceded by the shock announcement of a purge of nine generals who were among President Xi Jinping’s closest military confidants – raising questions over whom he can now trust.
The announcement further deepens attention on this week's Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee of the CCP that runs until Thursday at a time when China’s trade and technology war with the United States is intensifying and with signs of an ongoing military buildup that could potential target self-ruled Taiwan.
Newsweek asked China's Ministry of Defense and Foreign Ministry in Beijing, and its embassy in Washington, D.C. for comment but did not immediately hear back. The ministries were contacted outside of regular office hours in China.
The latest changes cap months of purges in the military and the security services that have seen dozens of senior leaders fall, and a 13-year-long campaign by Xi against corruption which he has said could finish CCP power.
The nine men purged had "gravely violated Party discipline and are suspected of serious duty-related crimes involving extraordinarily large sums, with conduct of an extremely severe nature and extremely vile impact," according to the People's Liberation Army Daily newspaper.
Observers inside and outside China are asking where this leaves Xi, who had promoted them himself during his rule since 2012.
"The key question is this: if Xi Jinping can no longer trust the confidants who came up with him…who can he still trust?" asked K. Tristan Tang, an analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation. Tang said that seven of the nine expelled generals are among Xi's oldest military confidants from the Fujian province region in southeastern China.
The Communist Party plenum will debate China's next Five-Year Plan, the 15th, setting important markers for the coming years.
It's the penultimate meeting of the powerful Central Committee before Xi's controversial third term as Party, PLA and state leader, ends in 2027. Another key question observers inside and outside China increasingly are asking – will Xi take a fourth term as leader of the party, the military and the state, thus further busting norms?
A read-out expected to published after the meeting will be scrutinized for clues on China's political future.
Friday's purge reduces to just four the number of men serving on the Central Military Commission (CMC), including Xi – an extraordinary concentration of power, according to analysts.
Even under state founder Mao Zedong the commission was bigger, with five members, and under Xi's predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin there were 11, with the larger number indicating a broader spread of political interests.
Experts remain deeply divided on whether Xi is as powerful as he once was, with some seeing challenges to his leadership which is perceived as having bungled the economy and become too authoritarian, while others see a consolidation of his power in the ongoing purges. But what seems clear is: it is increasingly lonely at the top.
