We Believe the CCP has Reached Peak Purge: 10 Forecasts
For the PLA, at least
The number of PLA officers left at the top is hilariously low. The senior level of the PLA (what we would describe as the high operational level, but most other analysts would likely describe as strategic leadership) is now a ghost town. Please review this excellent graph from the CSIS China Power Project:
The only senior general left is Xi Jinping’s hatchet man, Zhang Shengmin, who leads Central Discipline and Inspection work (ratting out your own people). He is the second green box in the Central Military Commission (CMC) at the top of the graph.
Xi Jinping, after reforming seemingly most aspects of the PLA’s doctrine, organization, training, and material acquisition, now has a generational opportunity to reshape the leadership - the people who lead the PLA. As we all know, people are policy.
What does this mean?
Unless a successor paramount leader conducts a similar level of PLA purges, it will be Xi Jinping’s hand-picked few that will guide the PLA over the next generation, starting time: current date.
The PLA in the short-term will turn from political rectification towards a new series of reforms focusing on coercion and warfighting. We are going back to the future of the 2016 PLA reform era, and we expect a new series of military strategic guidelines (MSGs) to be issued from Xi Jinping to the force. This will be driven by a new paramount leader-level assessment of the 全局 or global/international situation.
This new assessment of the 全局 will be driven by lessons observed from the Nagorno-Karabakh War, Ukraine War, Israeli War in Gaza, and Iran War. It will be further informed by the partial collapse of Beijing’s partner network across Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and potentially other shoes that have yet to drop.
These reforms will provide justification for the continued surge in the PLA budget, including funding for the nuclear arsenal, despite economic and budgetary constraints.
The Politburo will take partner relationships more seriously in the future. Expect Beijing to seek closer ties with Moscow, Pyongyang, Islamabad, and Phnom Penh.
Expect consolidation in relationships with Kazakhstan and Tanzania to diversify energy flows.
Expect reach out to Brazil and Gulf Monarchies to secure commodity markets and additional energy.
The pressure Washington is exerting on Beijing (intentional or not) is tremendous at the moment. We also expect Beijing to reinvigorate its quest for overseas PLA basing. The current basing structure does not give Xi credible options to counter or dampen US actions globally.
Xi’s commander plus commissar leadership cadre at mostly every level of the PLA will be strengthened and persist for a very long time.
What the paramount leader wants, the paramount leader gets. If Xi wants options for a Taiwan or Korea campaign, the PLA will figure out how to achieve at least limited objectives with the tools they have.
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