Xi Jinping and China could be in trouble — at least that’s what the headlines could lead one to conclude following the apparent recent purge of two of Beijing’s key interlocutors with the rest of the world, both high-profile loyalists in the Chinese leader’s government.
But the well-known opacity in Beijing may have clouded assessments of how the turbulence is affecting Xi’s grip on power and his decision-making as China’s competition with the United States heats up.
While the lack of transparency and predictability adds more questions and fuels speculation about China, some experts say this doesn’t necessarily translate to tough times ahead for Xi, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
“It doesn’t mean China is less stable,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington. “It just means we know less about what’s going on.”
The fact that Xi can remove senior officials “when he wants to,” she added, “actually says his power base is solid.”
Missing ministers
Widespread speculation over the missing ministers kicked off in July, when then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang disappeared for weeks, only to be unceremoniously removed from his post without rhyme or reason after a one-month absence. Reports last month said he had been sacked after fathering a child in the U.S. during a long-rumored extramarital affair while serving as ambassador to Washington, potentially compromising Chinese national security.
News of more purges further raised eyebrows in August, when two of the most senior officials in the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force — which oversees the country’s land-based missile and nuclear arsenals — were ousted, part of an apparent attempt to install more loyal officials and smash corruption inside the force.
But concerns about Xi’s government have surged in recent weeks amid the more than monthlong, as-of-yet unexplained absence of Defense Minister Li Shangfu. The defense chief, who was last seen in public on Aug. 29, has reportedly been placed under investigation, together with eight other senior officials, over alleged corruption during his time as head of the military’s equipment procurement unit.
Both Li and Qin are among China’s five state councilors, a senior Cabinet post that ranks higher than a regular minister. Li also sits on the Central Military Commission, which is helmed by Xi and commands the country’s armed forces.
Li is expected to be formally replaced before Beijing holds the Xiangshan Forum international security meeting from Oct. 29 to 31. Gen. Liu Zhenli, the head of the military body responsible for China's combat operations and planning who is close to Xi, has emerged as the top contender to fill the post, Reuters reported, citing unidentified sources.
Although the posts of foreign and defense ministers are largely symbolic under the Chinese system — Qin was not the country’s top diplomat and Li does not oversee combat forces — the pair were widely seen as important faces representing Beijing’s diplomatic and military policy to the outside world.
“The removal of two senior officials charged with China’s diplomacy and China’s military diplomacy could certainly upset China’s interactions with the rest of the world in these domains,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a China expert and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program.
For the U.S., in particular, the removals could prove to be a distraction as Washington seeks to manage its increasingly fraught rivalry with Beijing and prevent it from veering into conflict.
Military ties
While the U.S. has sent a number of Cabinet-level officials to Beijing for high-profile meetings with senior Chinese officials, the results of these efforts remain mixed — including in one of the most pressing areas of concern: restoring military-to-military dialogue.
Those channels were effectively shut down following then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan. China claims the democratic island as a rogue province that must be united with the mainland, by force, if necessary.
Military ties plummeted even further in February following the dramatic U.S. shootdown of an alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States. Since then, Beijing had also demanded that U.S. sanctions imposed on Li, the missing defense chief, since 2018 be lifted as a condition for returning to talks. Those sanctions were issued in connection with China’s purchase of Russian weapons.
The Pentagon has remained steadfast that, despite the high-level U.S. visits to Beijing, there is an urgent need to reopen military channels.
“We've had some good diplomatic engagement over the last couple of months and that can support the management of some of these tensions,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner. “But ... I don't think those are a substitute for direct communications between military leadership and potentially between military operators.”
Ratner, the Pentagon’s top Asia official, said the two sides “should remain concerned that in the event of a crisis that we don't have the habits of communication, we don't have the relationships, and we don't have the kinds of open channels we need to be able to manage those in the tight timeframes that that we would want to.”
Fears of a crisis have grown as China has ramped up military moves around Taiwan in the more than 14 months since Pelosi’s visit, including large-scale exercises to the east of the island designed to blockade it and practice keeping the U.S. and its allies at bay.
Amid these concerns, Beijing has repeatedly argued Washington should show its sincerity with "practical moves" to create the "proper atmosphere" for reopening key military channels, saying that — at least for now — the maintenance of communication via diplomatic channels is enough.
"What the United States does not have is not the communication channels, but the courage and action to face realities squarely and correct its mistakes," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly news conference in late September.
But Li's removal — coupled with an appointment of Liu — could create an opportunity for the resumption of senior-level defense talks “that can help clarify intentions,” said Amanda Hsiao, a senior China analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.
Liu, who would come into the post unburdened by U.S. sanctions, would also allow for the Pentagon to have communications with a counterpart directly involved in China’s military operations and war planning — something American defense officials have long sought.
Fravel said that if or when Li is publicly removed and his replacement is named, “then the change will be an interesting test of the claim that the sanctions on Li were preventing high-level U.S.-China military discussions.” But, he noted, “there is also a political element in China’s willingness to limit high-level talks, as China froze several military channels back in August 2022, well before Li became defense minister.”
Crisis fears overblown?
Although the disappearances of Qin and Li have stoked concerns in some corners that a crisis could more easily erupt — especially as heightened Chinese military activity near Taiwan continues and the Asian powerhouse’s economy faces headwinds — experts have downplayed these views.
“The impact on risk is probably not increased, given that in some ways both Qin and Li were relatively new to their positions and leading well-established bureaucracies,” said Fravel, noting that their removals did not prevent recent high-level U.S. visits or the establishment of new U.S.-China working groups.
Steve Tsang, director of London's SOAS China Institute, said that while removing senior generals and the defense minister could make the Chinese military less prepared in the short term, “it is meant to make it more effective in the longer term.”
Moves around Taiwan are “about intimidation, not about invasion,” he said. Changes in top-level personnel were unlikely to impact these tactics.
“Economic weakness may also make Xi think twice before taking on a risky military adventure, as his first priority is to stay in power and he will not want to start a war that can backfire on him,” Tsang added.
Indeed, the disappearances of key high-level officials in the Chinese military could reflect “Xi’s lack of confidence in some of his most senior officers,” Joel Wuthnow, a Chinese military researcher at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, wrote in Foreign Affairs late last month.
“Such doubts about the competence of his people and the equipment they have apparently mismanaged could weigh on Xi’s calculations of the risks of initiating a conflict — making him less certain that a decision to use force would achieve the intended results,” Wuthnow wrote. “As long as Xi doubts the stories his generals are telling him about their own proficiency, his mistrust in his own military will likely serve as a deterrent to war.”
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