By A Correspondent

Washington: China, under President Xi Jinping, has purged over 100 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers since 2022, revealing a much deeper war preparedness challenge, a new American study has found.

Among the top military officers removed, dismissed, or disappeared were a PLA General, who commanded the Chinese forces against Taiwan, another officer responsible for training and previously hailed for modernising PLA combat drills, and a chief military aide to Xi himself, the study concluded.

These PLA leaders were among the dozens of those from the senior military ranks, who were seen as future top brass, but have now been detained, dismissed, or just disappeared from public view without any explanation in the last four years, according to the study by American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) ‘China Power’ project.

The study report was released on February 24, 2026, and the staggering extent of Xi’s campaign to shake up the PLA had only last month led to the removal of senior military general Zhang Youxia, the study mentioned. These purges have stripped the PLA of experienced military commanders, raising serious doubts over the war preparedness of the Chinese armed forces.

The Chinese PLA strategy against Taiwan, an independently administered democracy claimed entirely by Communist China, has suffered from these military removals, dismissals, and unexplained disappearances, the study noted. “In the near term, given the significant vacancies, it would be incredibly difficult for China to launch large military campaigns against Taiwan,” Bonny Lin, director of the CSIS China Power Project, wrote in his assessment.

Nearly 100 senior PLA Generals and Lieutenant Generals have been dismissed or sidelined since 2022. This included 11 officers purged even after they had retired, indicating the depth of Xi’s targeting of the PLA top brass. About half of the PLA senior leadership, including key commanders, chiefs, and deputy chiefs of central military departments in all military theatres and regions, were targeted, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and Chinese military expert Taylor Fravel.

Replacing these PLA officers would be difficult, as Xi’s purges reduced the pool of right candidates with skills, experience, and loyalty to the Chinese President and the Communist Party, the study noted. After analysing the data, Fravel noted that a top PLA officer needed 5 years in the current rank before being promoted to the next rank.

“Xi has purged all of these people and, obviously, it’s framed as their lack of loyalty to Xi and to the party,” Fravel said in a New York Times interview. “But he also needs expertise to have the military he wants — loyalty as well as expertise — and how will he find those people? That’s going to be harder now,” he said.

In 2022, the purges began with a single officer disappearing from public view, and in 2023, it increased to 14 officers. By 2024, another 11 officers faced a similar fate, but in 2025, the purge was massive, with 62 officers removed, many among them in the year’s second half. In 2026, in just two months, 11 officers were absent from military meetings that they were expected to attend, indicating serious trouble within the PLA, the data showed.

Interestingly, some of the officers purged owed their rise to Xi, and others were star-ranked officers seen as the future leaders of the PLA, the study noted. The purges included Lieutenant General Wang Peng, whose reputation for modernising the PLA training preceded his removal, Lieutenant General Zhong Shaojun, who served as Xi’s chief aide, and General Lin Xiangyang, who commanded the forces facing Taiwan, the study revealed.

While there were officers who could fill the shoes of these purged senior PLA leaders, the wave of dismissals, removals, and disappearances could have a cascading effect through the ranks, it was estimated. Last year, Xi attempted to plug gaps in the PLA leadership caused by his purges by promoting new commanders for the Eastern Theatre Command overseeing Taiwan operations and the Central Theatre Command that guarded Beijing. However, there is no indication of when Xi would fill the vacancies of the Central Military Commission, the apex body on military directly controlled by him.

NOTE: Follow Defence.Capital on Arattai.
NOTE: Follow Defence.Capital on Telegram.
NOTE: Follow Defence.Capital on WhatsApp.