Beijing’s Critical Week: Is Xi Losing Control of the PLA?

Hi, everyone. Hi, welcome to today's World Talk. All right, Thursday night. Okay, everyone is back. All right, people say, where is she? Taking a sip of water. Okay, one week, just one week. That's how long Xi Jinping has before the CCP's two sessions begin. And it may be the most dangerous week of his political career. It has now been a month since he moved against his two most powerful generals. Instead of stabilizing the system, Beijing has grown more tense. The arrests send tremors through the military and the party. Now, beginning March the 4th, thousands of delegates from across China will gather in Beijing for the most important political event of the year, aka the two sessions. And hanging over that gathering is a single question. Does Xi Jinping truly control the military? If you want to assess whether the anti-Xi camp is advancing, if you want to know whether this purge represents consolidation or internal fracture, you don't need leaks. You don't need secret sources. You don't need rumors. You only need to watch three hard indicators over the next seven days. And one of them is already sending strong signals, which I will analyze in detail. So today, I will break down the three signs to watch this week, the signals that will reveal whether Xi truly stands politically. The first signal or the first hard indicator is this February Politburo meeting. Now, the January Politburo meeting did not issue an official decision retroactively approving Xi's move against the two fallen generals. That is a procedural gap Xi urgently needs to close. Now, all eyes are on the February 28th Politburo meeting. If this meeting again fails to formally endorse the decision, it would signal something very serious. Xi may be unable to commend the party's highest governing body. This once 21-person Politburo. Well, this actually was once 24-person. It is now 21-person because they got rid of three. They got rid of two vice-chairmen of the CMC, He Wei, Dong Wan, Zhang Youxia, and then the Xinjiang Party Secretary Ma Xinrui has been missing for several sessions. So it's now 21-person. So if Xi Jinping is unable to get a consensus from this meeting, that means the Politburo would in fact be withholding collective backing. And this is the first hard indicator, and we will know the answer within days. The second hard indicator is the status of Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohu. Now, at this critical moment, rumors are spreading rapidly that Wang, Minister Wang, has been detained. Wang has followed Xi Jinping for more than 20 years. Like Cai Qi, he is widely seen as one of Xi's most loyal allies. It's even said that when Xi Jinping served as a local official in Fujian, his daughter stayed with Wang's family and was taken care of by them. So today, Minister Wang sits at the center of controversy because the public security apparatus he commands reportedly played a key role in the arrest of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, whose current status, alive or dead, remains unknown. So that alone makes him a natural target for retaliation. Previously, we've heard rumors circulating about his health crisis, cancer, and imminent resignation. Now, the narrative has escalated to claim that he has been taken into custody. If Xi Jinping cannot publicly produce Zhang Youxia, alive or dead, will he shift blame onto his deputies and sacrifice Wang Xiaohu to stabilize the situation? That's something many people are closely watching. Now, there's another layer. Some people believe Wang Xiaohong's troubles may stem from testimony by a guy whose name is Chen Zhi, chairman of the Prince Group, who was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice. He was recently repatriated to China from Cambodia. Now, Chen Zhi, this guy, is widely described as a top-tier white glove who managed wealth for Xi Jinping's inner circle and family network. So if anti-Xi forces intend to move against Minister Wang, allegations involving money laundering and corruption could become powerful tools. And it's said that the former chairman of the Prince Group has made allegations against the minister. At a recent Lunar New Year gathering or reception, Wang appeared visibly downcast, even resentful. So the question becomes, will Xi Jinping be forced to compromise and hand over Wang Xiaohong in order to ease internal pressure? So the minister's status and future is the second indicator. Now, the third indicator, the National People's Congress, or NPC. The question is, will the NPC revoke Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenni's delegate status, a necessary step to formalize their investigation? Now, the standing committee of the 14th NPC has already held two meetings to review delegate qualifications. The first was called an emergency meeting held on February the 4th. That session brought down three mid-level officials from China's aerospace industry. All eyes were on the second session, which was held yesterday, I mean from the 25th to the 26th. Officially, the session resulted in 19 delegates losing their status, of which nine were PLA officers. Five full generals, one lieutenant general, three major generals. Now the nine senior officers across multiple branches, they came from the army, the navy, air force, rocket force, information support force. It was not confined to one service, it was system-wide. Now let me tell you who they are, the nine people. So the first was former army commander Li Qiaoming, political commissar of the information support force Li Wei, former navy commander Shen Jinglong, former navy political commissar Qin Shengxiang, former air force political commissar Yu Zhongfu, commander of the 73rd group army Ding Laifu, rocket force base number 64, and its commander Yang Guang, and then the assistant director of the CMC's political work department Bian Ruifeng, and then the political commissar of the CMC national defense mobilization department Wang Donghai. Okay, so these are the nine people. And according to Xinhua, the MPC standing committee also removed Major General Liu Shaoyun from his position as president of the military court. Interesting, isn't it? They brought down the general who prosecutes generals. So this is not cosmetic cleanup. And yet, the most important thing is the announcement did not mention Zhang Youxia or Liu Zhenli. It did not revoke their MPC delegate status. It did not remove them from their state CMC positions, because they hold dual positions. One is the party's CMC positions, the party's Central Military Commission positions. And then concurrently, they also hold the state, the country's CMC positions. So like I said, this was the second ad hoc, I shouldn't say ad hoc, this was the second MPC standing committee meeting this month. Many people believe these meetings were convened specifically to formalize the two generals' removal and provide institutional endorsement. But apparently, that did not happen. It was complete silence when it comes to the matter concerning the two generals. So how do we explain that? I think the silence is louder than anything we've heard so far. Now, if you examine the nine fallen generals more closely, you'll notice something interesting. People say some are associated with the Xi Jinping camp, while others are linked to Zhang Youxia. Well, the only person who people believe is linked to Zhang Youxia is the former army commander Li Qiaoming, rumored recently to have resisted Xi Jinping and staged a coup during the Lunar New Year. Remember, I told you about this a few days ago. So he is widely viewed as aligned with Zhang Youxia. Now here's the issue, he has been absent from key meetings since last August. So he has been suspected to have fallen even earlier than that. It's just that yesterday, his downfall was officially announced. So as far as who took him down, was it Xi Jinping taking down Li Qiaoming at this time, or Zhang Youxia might have taken him down last year. So it's not known. Now, there are other interesting observations from the list, or from the announcement. Now it's officially confirmed for the first time that General Wang Renhua, former secretary of the CMC's Political and Legal Affairs Commission, and General Zhang Hongbin, former political commissar of the Armed Police Force, and Lieutenant General Wang Peng, former head of the CMC Training and Administration Department, were stripped of their NPC status due to, quote, suspected serious violations of discipline and law. Now here's the background information you need to know. These three generals, their delegate status was already revoked on December 27th last year, along with He Weidong. However, the formal announcement of their crimes was only made known yesterday. So their delegate status was stripped last December, but nothing was said about what they did wrong until yesterday. These three figures are widely believed to be taken down by Zhang Youxia last year, when it was announced. Now, the fact that their crimes are now officially confirmed suggests that Zhang Youxia's earlier decisions have not been reversed after his arrest. NPC further confirmed the downfall of generals Zhang took down by announcing their crimes. In addition, at least two retired full generals were absent from this NPC session. First is General He Ping, former political commissar of the Eastern Theater Command, and General Zheng Weiping, former political commissar of the Strategic Support Force, which has been suspended. It has become the Information Support Force. Now, how do people know? Based on the footage of the meeting, people spotted their empty seats. The two might have run into problems very recently because their seat arrangements were made at the meeting, they just didn't show up. Also, these two had attended the 19th Standing Committee session last December, so they were fine last December. But now, they're absent. So why is the absence of these two generals significant? Well, He Ping served as deputy political commissar of the Western Theater Command after Xi Jinping's military reforms. And then in 2017, he became political commissar of the Eastern Theater Command, widely considered a core stronghold of Xi's military faction. And then Zheng Weiping was He Ping's predecessor. He became the first political commissar of the Eastern Theater Command in 2016. And later, he became the political commissar of the Strategic Support Force, a unit personally created by Xi Jinping. Now, of the five theater commands, the Eastern Theater Command is the most important to Xi, because it is responsible for Taiwan operations and includes the former 31st Group Army in Fujian, where Xi built much of his early political network. So, in other words, the two absent generals are senior officers promoted during Xi Jinping's military reform era, and deeply embedded in what many consider Xi's military base. Their sudden absence strongly suggests turbulence inside Xi's own camp. Did Xi Jinping take them down on his own, or anti-Xi forces did? So, the confirmation of investigations against the three generals from December, combined with these two unexplained absences, point in the same direction. The purge within Xi Jinping's military network has not slowed at all. It is continuing. This reinforces what we have been analyzing since Zhang Youxia's arrest. Even if Xi has moved against Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, he has not secured full control over the broader military system behind him. He has not fully consolidated military power. And without full control of the guns, he cannot prevent anti-Xi forces from gradually encroaching on his network within the armed forces. So, that is the first major sign we've seen from the recent NPC session. Now, let's go a little deeper and take a look at the impact of the purging of the nine generals on the PLA. Let me just give you some statistics. You're all aware of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, but scale matters. Over the past 14 years, more than 200,000 officers have been disciplined. Nearly 160 generals have been purged. Around 10 members of the Central Military Commission have been removed. This now exceeds the intensity of Mao-era military purges. So, what we're witnessing is not ordinary discipline. It's structural rotation by annihilation. Let me give you the impact of the latest purge of the nine generals and from four perspectives. The first is, it's a generational break in the army. When Li Qiaoming is politically neutralized, all post-Xi Jinping reform or all post-reform army commanders, there were three of them, Han Weiguo, Liu Zhenli, and Li Qiaoming, have effectively been removed from power. That means after Xi Jinping's military reform, the three army commanders have all been removed. That means the entire generation that led the ground forces after Xi's reforms have been wiped out. In the PLA, the army is considered the foundational pillar. Traditionally, it's the most important branch of all the services. So, that's destabilizing. All three are gone. It's a generational rapture in the army command chain, and that's destabilizing. So, that's the first impact. The second is, even Xi Jinping's new combat forces are not safe. The fall of General Li Wei, political commissar of the Information Support Force, carries particular symbolic weight. The Information Support Force was established in April 2024. That's not even two years. It was established when Xi Jinping dismantled the formal Strategic Support Force, and reorganized it into new branches, including information, cyber, and aerospace components. This force represents the future of warfare, cyber operations, electronic warfare, digital battlefield coordination. It was personally unveiled by Xi himself, and yet its top political commissar has now fallen. That sends a stark message. Under Xi's system, institutional lifespan offers no protection. Nothing is permanently secure. Nothing is secure. That's the second point. The third is, retirement no longer protects you. Three of the nine generals taken down are retired. They are former Navy commander, Shen Jinglong, former Navy political commissar, Qin Shengxiang, and former Air Force commissar, Yu Zhongfu. They have collectively disappeared. That sends an extreme signal. Retirement is no longer a safe harbor. Political accountability is retroactive and indefinite. In previous decades, stepping down offered insulation. Today, there's no such thing. Loyalty has no expiration date. The message is a chilling one. There is never a safe exit. Now, the last observation has to do with frontline shock. Two of the nine generals were commanders of real frontline units. They are commanders of the 73rd Group Army, which is the unit that faces Taiwan. The other one is the commander of the Rocket Force Base 64. It anchors nuclear deterrence. Commanders at both nodes have been purged in this last round. When you remove leaders at this level, you do not merely punish individuals. You interrupt operational continuity. You disrupt institutional memory. Purge cycles fracture trust and planning rhythms. Some experts say the pattern of promotion and purge, this annihilation-style rectification, has effectively degraded the PLA from a professional fighting force into a ceremonial armed body. I'm not sure if it was ever a professional fighting force under Xi Jinping, but anyways, that's what some experts say. That leads to another structural consequence. Xi Jinping is becoming the lonely commander at the top of the pyramid. He stands alone at the apex. People comply out of fear or calculation. Of the three hard indicators I mentioned, two remain uncertain. We need to keep an eye on them. The third one has already given us clues, like I analyzed. Right now, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli remain NPC delegates. Their formal political status has not changed at all. Such an irony. In fact, on nearly all official CCP websites, with the exception of CCTV, their profiles, titles, and photographs remain intact. Remember, this was the last NPC Standing Committee meeting before the upcoming two sessions. If this issue is not resolved at this stage, it means the two generals technically still hold delegate status, which carries legal immunity. Under the PRC's own constitution and procedural framework, without first stripping their NPC delegate status, criminal investigations against them cannot formally proceed. That's the immunity that NPC delegates have. In other words, at least on paper, any investigation lacks proper legal grounding. Xi Jinping might have acted, but the institutional endorsement has not followed. What we're seeing is a procedural tug-of-war between Xi Jinping and those against him. Xi Jinping appears to... I think this stalemate has refused to die. It's not going away. It's been a month. This is the hardest iron wall Xi Jinping has encountered since taking power. I don't think he has ever seen anything like this. But of course, with the unpredictability of the regime, anything could happen. Power struggles behind the red walls are opaque. It's entirely possible that proceedings against the two generals could drag on. It's also possible that Xi Jinping could suddenly flip the table or consolidate control. Anything is possible. It's hard to say. What I want to tell you about is a historical anecdote. I'm always being asked this question. How do you know Xi Jinping is not in control? What makes you think that Xi Jinping has lost control of the military? That's the billion-dollar question that I'm always getting. I think the best way to answer that is by taking a look at a situation that's similar. Back in 1989, right after the Tiananmen Square massacre—in fact, just five days after that, it was on June 9, 1989—Deng Xiaoping convened senior officers at or above army-level rank from the martial law forces stationed in Beijing. I think it was a sizable group. I don't know. I was told that there were dozens of them. It was a large group. It wasn't a small group. And Deng Xiaoping delivered a major speech at Zhongnanhai's Huaiyuan Hall. Huaiyuan Hall is an important place. That's where Deng Xiaoping staged a coup against Madame Mao and her gang of four. It's a symbolic place for Deng Xiaoping, and that's where he gathered the top PLA leaders. It was Deng Xiaoping's only public address directly concerning the Tiananmen crackdown. It was said that it was actually attended by over 100 senior leaders, officers from the PLA. So why did Deng Xiaoping hold that meeting? Because the political environment at the time was volatile. Rumors were spreading both domestically and internationally about civil war, military division, and claims that Deng Xiaoping had lost control. In that context, convening the meeting as chairman of the Central Military Commission sent a powerful political signal. Its purpose was very clear, to stabilize military morale, intimidate opposition forces, and communicate to the party, the armed forces, and the nation that Deng Xiaoping remained firmly in command. Now compare that with today. Since Zhang Youxia's arrest, visible leadership fractures, questions of military loyalty, and the emergence of competing power centers have all become increasingly visible. So the pressure Xi Jinping now faces politically and psychologically, I think, exceeds what Deng Xiaoping confronted in 1989. Because Xi Jinping is isolated today when Deng Xiaoping was not isolated. There were different voices within the party, but Deng Xiaoping was not anywhere as isolated as Xi Jinping is today. So if Xi Jinping truly exercised absolute authority over the military, if his power overwhelmingly outweighed all opposition, the solution would be straightforward. He could convene senior commanders and publicly announce the charges against Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhengli, call for ideological unity, demand loyalty to Chairman Xi, and launch a comprehensive rectification campaign. One decisive meeting would silence speculations. Actually, he didn't even need to gather over a hundred military commanders. He didn't even need to have such a large group. All he has to do is to make arrangements to appear with two generals. If he could show up with the central theater commander, Han Shengyan, during an inspection of the elite 82nd Group Army, the very unit responsible for protecting Beijing, the very unit that has been rumored to be controlled under the anti-Xi forces, I mean, all he had to do is show up with Commander Han Shengyan to inspect the 82nd Group Army. That picture is worth a thousand words. And if he could stand next to the other newly promoted commander, the commander of Eastern Theater Command, Yang Zhibing, while visiting his favorite 31st Group Army, I think the name might have been changed. I think the 31st Group Army no longer exists. It has been renamed. But basically, if he could visit the Eastern Theater Command, which has long been considered one of his core military bases, that would dispel rumors, and that would send a clear message. Because both of these two generals are widely believed to have been promoted by Zhang Youxia last December. They were chosen by Zhang Youxia and promoted last December. So if Xi Jinping brought them out publicly, and they stood firmly by his side, most of the doubts about whether he controls the PLA will quickly fade. So why hasn't he done it? Is it because he doesn't want to? Or because he cannot? Well, if a leader has power to prove control and chooses not to, that's strategy. But if he wants to show strength and simply cannot, that's a limitation. And when there's silence like this, at this time, it's not meaningless. It's telling us something. So I tend to think that it's because he is not able to gather those two generals to be by his side and take a picture together. So let me return to the three indicators. The CCP's two sessions will begin on March 4th and 5th, respectively. So from now until the start of the two sessions is seven days or one week. So we should watch closely. If you want clarity, then watch three things. Indicator number one, does the Politburo meeting explicitly address Zhang Youxia? If silence continues, that suggests Xi Jinping is getting more and more isolated politically. He has lost the confidence of the Politburo. Indicator number two, does Wang Xiaohong, the Minister of Public Security, remain politically secure? And the third indicator is, does the NPC move directly against the two generals or continue to remain silent? These three signals will determine whether the system is stabilizing or jamming. So that is my assessment of the power dynamics in Zhongnanhai right now. In fact, I think so much is going on that people are now suspecting if President Trump is going to actually make a trip to China. The South China Morning Post reported today that Trump's visit is now up in the air. It's not a done deal. Because the Chinese are allegedly obsessed with every detail, including the number of steps Xi Jinping would take and how he is going to shake hands with Trump. And President Trump doesn't like that. He is someone who likes to improvise on the spot. And he is not going to put out a performance. Basically, the Chinese want to stage a performance to show in front of the international audience and domestic audience that Xi Jinping is very much in control. And I do not think President Trump is someone who likes that. And you know, the South China Morning Post is a media organization closely tied to the CCP leadership. So when it says that the trip is not a done deal, I think we have a good reason to believe so. And I think it's a smart move for President Trump not to go to Beijing right now, because he's not going to gain anything. Given everything that's happening around the world in the scheme of things, going to China is not his top priority. But if he goes, he will give Xi Jinping more credit. So I think it's a good idea that he doesn't go. All right, that's what I have for you tonight. I want to mention my video in the Looking Glass channel. I have made a video that offers the most comprehensive analysis of the relationship between Xi Jinping and Zhang Youxia. Not just their relationship in this lifetime, but from 300 years ago. So I'm very proud of myself of that work. It could be a video in this channel released in this Real Talk, but because there's a cultural aspect of it, I released it in the Looking Glass. So Nicole, if you could share the link in the comments section, I think you will find that interesting. I've always wanted to make a video to explain the relationship between Zhang Youxia and Xi Jinping. I never had the chance to until recently. So I'm very happy with that video. It's 22 minutes long. All right, check it out. That's what I have. Have I been talking for 40 minutes? All right, let me see. Let me acknowledge the people who gave me super stickers. Okay, wow. First things first, let me pause to take a sip of water. Okay. What do we have? Let me acknowledge. Oh, here we go. Live animal. Who is in control of the ammunition in Beijing? That's a good question. From what I heard, the PLA has a system where they cross-check each other's ammo depots. So they have cross-provincial or cross-theater command ammunition control procedures. So for example, the military based in this province do not have access to the ammo stored in their province. They have to go cross-province to get their ammo. And similarly, for different theater commands. Because the CCP does not trust its people, so they have these very elaborate procedures in place to cross-check everyone. So when you ask me who is in control, I can't really answer that, but I know they have very stringent rules and procedures in place to control that. John Marcus Ellis. Well, thank you, John. Thank you. All right, question. Trump not going to be dictated. Someone said, Lei, you missed the elephant in the room about why Trump. An attack on Iran is imminent, it's 99.99% happening, and China is supporting Iran. That's yes. That's another reason. You're right. China is behind Iran. And Xi Jinping, I should say Xi Jinping's faction is behind Iran. I don't understand why Trump should not go to China at all at this time. Let's hope he's not going. Good point. How is Lei getting all this inside information? Well, this information I got is not inside information. It's all public information. The nine generals were coming from the communique of the NPC meeting. So these are all official information. Damien Michaels, does China have any famous UFO crashes? Not recently, but there were very suspicious flying objects two years ago across China's major cities that people spotted. Some people suspect that they were UFO, but UFO crashes, I have not heard. Maybe the government has covered it up? Possible. All right. Netflix foreign. China is so concerned about Japan and the US when it comes to Taiwan. Do they really think that the Philippines and the Vietnamese Navy will have no capability to push back? You're right. China is so concerned about Japan. And what's interesting is North Korea. What happened in the Korean peninsula recently is interesting. Lee Jae-myung's government has suspended joint military exercise with Japan and the US, or they have announced that they're not going to join the military exercise with Japan and the US, which was shocking to many people. Lee Jae-myung has always been very friendly to North Korea. And then Kim Jong-un, in a very surprising move, said something suggesting that he's friendly to the Americans, or he's friendly to the Trump administration, but he doesn't really like Lee Jae-myung. So that's very interesting. So the North Koreans is waving olive branches to the Trump administration, but it's being difficult with the South Korean government. And then I think as a result of that, Lee Jae-myung backed down. So I think that's fascinating. You never know. On the geopolitical chessboard, you never know how each piece will move. I think that's fascinating. All right. Purple facts. Thank you, purple facts. Okay, lay question. Tyler, 1984. If she is the supreme leader, what bureau would have the authority to detain his sister? There's no bureau that has the authority to detain his sister, if you ask me. No. But then on the flip side, just because of that, then any bureau, anyone who's brave enough or rebellious enough can detain his sister. There's no bureau that's given the authority to detain the sister, the family of the top leader. No one has that authority. So then it doesn't really matter. Anyone who has the guts to do so, can do so. All right. Lei is our cultural interpreter. Well, thank you. I'm glad to play that role. Janet Ma. Is she able to leave the country on business, et cetera? Is there any country that has invited him for a state visit? I suppose he can. He's the top leader, right? But at this point, I don't know. I don't know if he's allowed to leave. Maybe his opponents won't let him leave. But good question. All right. I reached the bottom of all questions. I think we will... How about we end it... Oh, here's a question from Netflix Foreign. It's not addressed to me. Sorry. Oh, from Seek the Truth. Sorry I'm late. I may have missed it. But has Yuan Hongbin weighed in on what is going on, his insights? Mr. Yuan Hongbin has said that the two princeling heavyweights, Liu Yuan and Deng Xiaoping's son, have joined forces with other princelings. Their agenda is to force Xi Jinping to step down at the 21st Party Congress. That is next year in 2027. That's their goal. They made it very clear that they are opposing Xi Jinping for a fourth term. Someone, Joey asked me, who picks your outfits? They look great. Oh, I do. I pick my own outfits and hairdo. Okay. All right. I reached the bottom. Let's end it here tonight. And I'll be back this weekend for more information. Stay tuned. All right. Bye. Make sure you check out the video in the Looking Glass channel. It's about Xi Jinping and Zhang Youxia. It will answer many questions for us. All right. Bye. Thank you. Bye.