PUBLISHED on August 12, 2025, 7:57 PM EDT – Key Points and Summary – As China prepares for a massive military parade to showcase its rapidly modernizing forces, a deep crisis of leadership is unfolding within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
-While the military is fielding advanced new weapons and aims to be ready for a major war by 2027, President Xi Jinping’s aggressive anti-corruption campaign has led to a series of high-level purges.
-Three of the seven seats on the powerful Central Military Commission are now vacant.
-This leadership turmoil, driven by endemic corruption and a demand for absolute loyalty, raises serious questions about the PLA’s actual combat readiness.
The PLA is a ‘Party Army,’ And That’s Its Biggest Weakness
WARSAW, POLAND – In three weeks, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CCP), Xi Jinping, will assume the role of ’emperor’ as he reviews the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during one of the largest military parades ever held in Beijing.
Ostensibly, this spectacle commemorates the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies, which brought the Second World War to an end.
The official party line in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is to refer to the war as the “Japan War of Aggression.” The war and China’s “humiliation” at the hands of Japan are still greatly emphasized in popular culture even today to the point where it is a near obsession.
But the proper function of this parade is to show the world the rising power of the PLA and the nation’s continuing developments in new weapon systems. More importantly, this spectacle is to make it clear that Xi has supreme authority over the military.
Armed forces in democracies are apolitical and non-partisan. Their personnel take an oath to defend the constitution of their nation-state. But the PLA is a pure party army and not an armed force dedicated to defending its country’s citizens.
Its soldiers, sailors, and airmen pledge their allegiance to the CCP, a Leninist party that has a monopoly of absolute control over all political power.
A recent long article on the relations between Xi and his military notes that in the days of the lengthy preparations for this parade, PRC state-run television has begun broadcasting a new documentary series. This series, called “Storming the Fort”, shows the PLA is today ready to engage in live combat in a full-scale conflict. As a footnote to stress that party supremacy over the military, one of the signature lines in the series has an infantry officer declaring, “When the party tells you to do something, you sure do it.”
More New Hardware Than Ever Before for PLA
The PLA is a far different force from what it was in the previous century.
During the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, Beijing could threaten and rattle its sabre all it wanted, but the reality was that it had no way of really threatening the Republic of China (ROC).
Even if the military had been able to invade the island, it had no adequate assault transports in its fleet to transport an invasion force. The joke on that day was that if the PRC ever tried to take the island by force, it would be called the “million-man swim.”
Today, most of the anxiety inside the Pentagon about threats facing American interests centres on the PLA.
Its nuclear force increases by at least 100 warheads per year. Its air force, the PLAAF, has so many aircraft that it continues regular harassment flights to circumvent the ROC and surround the island from the air. These flights are also continuing to increase in both the number of aircraft and their frequency.
As the September 3 date for the parade approaches, Beijing rolls out next-generation fighter aircraft. These aircraft are notable for their aggressive application of design concepts and innovative propulsion systems. In December 2024, on the birthday of PRC founding dictator Mao Zedong, footage of these two prototype stealth fighters was “released” on internet sites to one-up the US, which has yet to fly one of its new 6th-generation design aircraft in public.
No Substitute for Leadership
However, having the most modern and lethal military hardware is not all that is required for an armed forces establishment.
The CCP’s senior officials do not understand that the PLA needs a chain of command that its rank-and-file respect and will follow orders as much as it requires more modern weaponry. But that command structure seems to be missing in action these days.
On the surface, the leadership of the PLA is experiencing a crisis of sorts. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission (CMC) appear to be vacant due to members who were arrested or who have simply disappeared.
The CMC, under the leadership of Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, is the CCP’s decision-making body that oversees the armed forces.
The official reason for these is that President Xi Jinping has been trying for more than a decade to rebuild the PLA into a loyal, modern, combat-ready force—but one that is obedient and loyal only to him. He has also set a goal for the PLA to be fully modernized and able to take on a peer competitor by 2027. This is the year, say some US intelligence officials, that Xi expects his military to be ready to invade the ROC. Beijing has long claimed the island as part of its territory and has threatened to take it by force if necessary.
Those examining the PLA’s trials and tribulations are wondering how it is that the senior PLA officials being investigated, arrested, and purged are some of the same high-ranking officers that he selected as his trusted lieutenants. The fact that no matter who he appoints to senior positions, the same old problems of corruption – and worse, sometimes treason – are still present. This suggests that the PLA is a system that is institutionally incapable of being reformed.
“This is a situation that never seems to go away,” said one NATO-nation intelligence officer who had worked the “China desk” for years. “There are just too many incentives in that system – cultural, social, financial – to cheat or to take advantage of any chance to enrich themselves. More modern equipment in and of itself will not do the trick until these root causes are dealt with.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the US Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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