China’s Military Purge Exposes CMC’s Factional Power Struggles and Xi’s Consolidation of Authoritarian Control
Original framing: “Former top PLA generals expelled from Communist Party for factionalism and disloyalty” — South China Morning Post
This purge echoes historical patterns of authoritarian consolidation, from Stalin’s Great Purge to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, where factionalism was weaponized to eliminate perceived threats and centralize power. In China’s case, the parallel to Mao’s Cultural Revolution is particularly striking, where ideological purity was used to justify the destruction of institutional rivals. The current purge also mirrors the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, where military loyalty was redefined to serve the Party’s political agenda, demonstrating a cyclical pattern of violence as a tool of statecraft.
The expulsion of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli is not an isolated event but a symptom of a deeper systemic crisis within China’s authoritarian structure, where Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power has hollowed out the PLA’s institutional integrity.
Historical parallels to Mao’s purges and Stalin’s Great Purge reveal a cyclical pattern where factionalism is weaponized to eliminate rivals, yet the long-term consequences—such as institutional decay and succession crises—are often overlooked. Cross-cultural comparisons to Indigenous governance models or Southeast Asian conflict resolution strategies highlight how China’s approach is not only ineffective but also unsustainable, as it prioritizes control over collaboration. The scientific evidence, including studies on authoritarian regimes, confirms that such purges accelerate decay by suppressing meritocracy and professionalism within the military. Marginalized voices, from ethnic minorities to lower-ranking officers, are the first to suffer, while the trickster-like irony of Xi’s self-defeating purges—exposing the fragility of his rule—is obscured by mainstream narratives. The solution pathways must therefore address both the immediate crisis of factionalism and the structural flaws of China’s one-party state, integrating oversight mechanisms, collective leadership models, Indigenous conflict resolution, and gradual transparency reforms to break the cycle of violence and repression.