By P.K.Balachandran/Counterpoint
Colombo, February 16 – Except in military dictatorships, it is understood that a country’s civilian leadership must have strategic control or supremacy over the armed forces.
While China’s President Xi Jinping has been enforcing that principle through periodic purges in the top echelons of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), India seemed to have veered from the principle during the landmark clash with the PLA in Eastern Ladakh in May-June 2020.
When faced with the prospect of a Chinese intrusion and attack in Galwan in May 2020, the then Indian army chief, Gen. M.M.Naravane, desperately tried to get orders from the top political leadership but in vain. Governmental prevarication ended with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, “Do what you think is appropriate”.
A deeply frustrated Naravane wrote in his yet-unpublished book, “Four Stars of Destiny,” that he felt very lonely at the top at that time. He had to take a decision to fight China when India was facing a dire situation with COVID pandemic being at its height. In the Sino-Indian clash which took place in June 2020, 20 Indian soldiers were beaten to death.
The Indian opposition Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Modi of dereliction of duty as the top political decision maker, while ruling party members condemned Rahul for making anti-national statements and breaching national security.
Government supporters turned a deaf ear when pointed out that in the case of all the previous wars India had fought, the political leadership had taken final decisions through the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
Again in the past, the Indian political leadership had ticked off military leaders who had overstepped their limits and poked their noses into political affairs. Prime Minister Nehru had reprimanded the Indian army’s first Indian chief, Gen. K.M.Cariappa. Defence Minister George Fernandes sacked Navy chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagawat. Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw was sidelined when he poked his nose into politics.
In China, however, the political leadership has made it clear, time and again, that it is supreme vis-à-vis the PLA, though the PLA is but the military army of the ruling Communist Party. The top military decision making body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), has members from the PLA and also Communist Party leaders with the party General Secretary as its Chairman. The present General Secretary and CMC chairman is President Xi Jinping.
In China too, PLA brass have tried to interfere in political matters or defy their political bosses or take decisions independently. But the political leadership would come down heavily on them with purges.
On January 24 the Defence Ministry said that a top PLA officer, Gen. Zhang Youxia, and the Chief of Staff, Gen. Liu Zhenli, were being investigated for “serious violations of party discipline and law.”
The PLA Daily, the main organ of the Chinese military, accused Zhang and Liu of “seriously trampling on and undermining the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the Central Military Commission chairman.”
Most analysts say that the series of purges conducted by Xi had been meant to assert his or the Communist Party’s control over the military. Others say that Xi’s repeated resort to purges only shows his inability to control the military in a sustained way. But there is no gainsaying that civilian control over the armed forces is being asserted through the purges.
Christopher K Johnson, President of the China Strategies Group and a former Senior China Analyst at the CIA, wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs last month, that the Defence Ministry’s terse announcement “masked the biggest political earthquake to hit the top brass of the People’s Liberation Army since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.”
The sacking was also the zenith of President Xi’s purges, which have touched every section of the PLA. These purges have claimed all but one top military officer in the CMC.
However, Gordon G. Chang argues in Newsweek that Xi purged Zhang and Liu because he could not influence them or persuade them. Chang submits that Xi had not been able to control the top echelons of the military.
“A decade ago, Xi looked as if he had cemented control. The continual corruption purges carried out in the early years of his rule, along with a major reorganisation of the PLA in the middle of the last decade, allowed him to install loyalists throughout the chain of command. Yet, since then, China’s leader has been continually removing flag officers and then removing their replacements. If Xi were in such total command today, why did he have to remove so many officers over the past decade?” Chang asks.
In the midst of these theories about purges, speculation is rife as to what exactly was the wrongdoing of Zhang and Liu. A section of the Western media went to the extent of saying that Zhang leaked nuclear secrets to the United States. But this is discounted by others.
Corruption is also alluded to as the main cause, because corruption has been rampant in the PLA and that has also been the most common cause of removals. The other reason cited is Xi’s fear of being ousted by a rump in the CMC led by Zhang.
Civilian Control
But the most likely and basic reason is Xi’s anxiety to keep the CMC, and through it the PLA, under his thumb or broadly under the control of the political leadership as represented by the Communist Party.
These purges have reduced the CMC’s strength to half of what existed after the last overhaul in 2022. The plenum left those seats vacant, though fresh appointments should usually come along with reshuffles. According to Christopher Johnson, these vacancies are kept because Xi plans to establish complete authority over the CMC before he seeks a fourth five-year term in 2027. He could, at the appropriate time, pack the CMC with handpicked men, Johnson believes.
Fighting Fit but Subservient to the Political Master
Johnson’s speculation is that Xi wants to have a military which is at once fighting fit and firmly under the control of the political leadership (in essence, his leadership). Zhang and Liu were axed perhaps because they might not have filled the bill as leaders of the PLA in these two important respects.
Threat from US led by Trump
Xi’s anxieties about the PLA makes sense because US President Donald Trump is preparing for war, though he declares that he is a peace maker and not a war monger.
Trump has openly talked of the US militarily taking over Greenland and Canada, and had actually invaded Venezuela to abduct President Maduro and bring that country under the American heel. Trump had also renamed the Department of Defence as the Department of War to give it a sharper focus.
With a warlike adversary like Trump, who is also unpredictable and mercurial, Xi is compelled to ensure that the PLA is fighting fit, corruption-free and totally under the control of the Communist Party headed by him.
Domestic Compulsions
Xi also needs to ensure domestic political stability in case a war has to be fought with the US over Taiwan. America has also been making a bid to bring about regime change in China as was done in the case of the USSR earlier. During a war, it is the PLA which has to underwrite internal peace, stability, and the compliance of the Chinese population.
To ensure peace around China, while he purges the army, Xi has abandoned the brash “wolf warrior” diplomacy. He is now building strength by making China a “fortress economy” and ensuring that the PLA will deliver results if military action becomes inevitable.
Stepwise Process
The purges appear to be a stepwise process unfolding across his three terms in office, Johnson says.
When Xi started the purges, he was still consolidating his power. So he focused on decapitating the officer networks of potential rivals. Even though he realised that corruption was humongous, he did not go overboard to curb it. He avoided crippling the PLA operationally and risking regime stability. During his second term, Xi refrained from purging senior officers, though corruption was rampant.
His attention was elsewhere, focuses on the civilian structure. The civilian security and civilian intelligence services reeked of corruption. This made Xi go for a crackdown against them. Xi knew that he could not attack the PLA and security agencies simultaneously. So he adopted a staggered approach, Johnson explains.
However, in his third term, the cesspool of corruption in the Rocket Force had reached such heights that it could not be ignored. In late 2023, he knew that the procurement system also needed cleansing.
The firing of two CMC officers at last October’s plenum stemmed from disagreements between Xi and Gen. Zhang over personnel matters. According to Johnson, this drove Xi to make a clean sweep and dump Zhang and Liu as well in January this year. With that, the restoration of civilian authority over the military was established, at least for the time being.
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