Xi Jinping Orders Deeper Military Anti-Corruption Push Ahead of PLA
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- Xi Jinping told senior Communist Party leaders on July 31 to deepen the military anti-corruption fight and modernise national defence, declaring "the barrel of the gun must always obey the party's command" at a Politburo group session.
- Xi called for an intelligent military system incorporating unmanned technologies and deeper use of cyber-information systems, with combat effectiveness as the "fundamental orientation and standard of evaluation" for modernisation.
- Xinhua reported the remarks two days before the People's Liberation Army's 99th anniversary on August 1, with the Communist Party urging further progress ahead of the looming centenary next year.
- A February report by the London-based Independent Institute of Strategic Studies found ongoing corruption purges had hampered PLA fighting readiness and left "serious deficiencies" in the command structure.
- The Pentagon said in 2025 it believed China's leaders wanted the military ready to win a conflict over Taiwan by 2027, though more recent US intelligence assessments say Beijing does not currently plan to invade that year.
- China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has never renounced using force, and deploys military ships and planes around the island on a daily basis.
Why it matters: Xi's push to deepen anti-corruption purges while simultaneously demanding faster military modernisation exposes the tension between political-loyalty demands and combat capability. With IISS documenting PLA command deficiencies in February and the Pentagon tracking a 2027 Taiwan readiness target, the one-year gap to the PLA centenary becomes a concrete benchmark for measuring whether purges are cleaning house or hollowing it out.
