Xi Takes Military Purge to a New Level
Chinese military personnel leave after attending a ceremony to present flower baskets to deceased national heroes at the Monument to the People's Heroes to mark Martyrs' Day on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
China’s second-highest ranking general and eight other senior military officials have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army over allegations of serious misconduct and corruption, the country’s defense ministry announced Friday.
He Weidong, who served as vice-chair of the Central Military Commission, is the highest-ranking official targeted so far in an ongoing anti-graft campaign within China’s military, the AP reports. He ranked third in the country’s military hierarchy, after President Xi Jinping and another top general, according to the New York Times.
Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said the nine officials are suspected of “extremely serious crimes involving exceptionally large sums of money.” Their cases have been investigated and referred to military prosecutors for review and potential prosecution, Zhang added.
Anti-corruption drives have been a hallmark of Xi’s leadership since he came to power in 2012, resulting in the purge of thousands of officials, including high-profile political rivals.
He Weidong, who joined the Central Military Commission in 2022, has not appeared publicly for months—a common early sign that a senior official is under investigation. Friday’s announcement marked the first official confirmation of his dismissal. He was also one of the 24 members of the Politburo, China’s second-highest Communist Party body after the 7-member Politburo Standing Committee.
He previously led the Eastern Theater Command, responsible for operations against Taiwan in the event of a conflict. Among the other dismissed officials is Miao Hua, director of the Central Military Commission’s political work department, who has been under investigation since November. The commission, chaired by Xi, is China’s top military decision-making body.
The timing of the announcement comes just days before the Communist Party’s major meeting in Beijing, where the country’s next five-year plan will be outlined. Eight of the nine expelled leaders were members of the 205-person Central Committee, which is set to convene next week.
Neil Thomas, a China politics expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said expelling the officials “is a political show of force and a practical step to elevate non-voting alternates into full members of the Central Committee.”
The New York Times cites Atlantic Council analyst Mark Parker Young, a former deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia, who said Xi’s willingness to purge top military officials indicates that he likely does not expect to engage in a war in the near future, despite the disruption to military leadership.
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