After the Purge: Reassessing the Risk to Taiwan
Executive Summary:
- The purge of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from the Central Military Commission (CMC) likely stemmed from disagreements with Xi Jinping on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) force modernization and development, suggesting that the PLA may not be ready for a Taiwan contingency in 2027.
- Despite a loss in combat-tested leaders, Xi may still push the PLA to act in the medium term due to his advanced age and his desire to backfill key positions on the CMC, regardless of the PLA’s readiness.
- PLA gray zone activities around Taiwan will likely continue as they are seen as crucial “dress rehearsals” for a Taiwan contingency, notwithstanding leadership changes at the top.
Beijing has lost the last combat-tested leaders from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) high command. The removal of Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (张又侠) and Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department Liu Zhenli (刘振立), both veterans of the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts, has narrowed the experience pool Beijing can call upon to prepare for a Taiwan contingency. [1] It also severs the PLA’s link to officers who have commanded under fire, maneuvered units in combat, and translated doctrine into practice amid real battlefield friction. Their departure raises questions about how a rapidly modernizing but largely untested force preserves and transmits tactical and operational knowledge. It also prompts reconsideration of how CMC Chairman Xi Jinping’s political timeline for “solving the Taiwan question” (解决台湾问题) via unification can be reconciled with the PLA’s actual pace of force development (Xinhua, March 8).
Losing Combat Experience Impacts Tactical and Operational Knowledge
Some may argue that the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts that Zhang and Liu experienced are decades removed from the modern battlefield, but this does not diminish the value their combat experience brought to the CMC. While technology has strongly influenced the character of war, the fundamental concepts remain the same. As a result, on a tactical level, battle drills have not changed significantly, and excellent officers are still those who can lead and maneuver their units to approach and destroy the enemy. On the operational level, excellent officers are those who can coordinate the warfighting functions.
If not applicable for strategic planning, Zhang and Liu’s combat experiences—both tactical and operational—would be useful at least for evaluating realistic training standards, as they have commanded units and coordinated with adjacent formations under the stress of combat. Reports suggest Zhang Youxia coordinated indirect fires in the Battle of Song Mao Ling (松毛岭之战) to prevent his headquarters from being overrun, while Liu Zhenli successfully mounted 36 defenses with his company, earning numerous merit decorations (Jinri Toutiao, January 11, 2022; Baidu, August 28, 2022; Zhihu, April 29, 2024). This lends credence to the idea that their dismissal is tied to disagreements with Xi over force development and modernization (China Brief, January 26). It is possible that Zhang and Liu did not believe that the PLA would be ready according to Xi’s timeline, and Xi could not abide by this counsel.
Gray Zone Operations Provide Value to Full Campaigns
The PLA’s gray zone activities constitute “dress rehearsals for forced reunification,” according to senior U.S. military officers, and present invaluable opportunities for rehearsing complex operations and fundamental skills (House Armed Services Committee, April 2025; China Brief, January 24). Probes of Taiwanese defenses and combat patrols allow the PLA Navy and Air Force to practice pre-combat checks and inspections, maintenance drills, and sorties, in preparation for performing these tasks rapidly under stress. Combat reconnaissance and relaying collected intelligence to higher headquarters also enables units to practice the joint targeting cycle. [2] With the sample data provided by combat reconnaissance, staffs across echelons can practice their executing functions through increasingly realistic command post exercises. These exercises are crucial to allowing the PLA to practice their own version of the military decision-making process and understanding how to make use of capabilities by warfighting function. Lulls in gray zone operations consequently can be attributed to the purges, by creating manpower gaps in the ranks of PLA planners. The high training value that these activities confer, however, mean that they will likely continue in frequency and scale.
Delayed Davidson Window
With Zhang and Liu removed from their posts, the previous assessment that the PLA would be partial to a particular type of campaign for unification with Taiwan is no longer applicable (China Brief, November 11, 2025). Only Zhang Shengmin (张升民) now remains on the CMC, and his political commissar background means that he has limited influence on campaign planning. As a result, the PLA will not be able to meet its modernization goals by 2027, the so-called “Davidson Window,” and will not be ready to stage an invasion of Taiwan in the near term.
The PLA’s execution of scheduled year-round military exercises in the Taiwan Strait nevertheless indicate that its tactical and operational-level units and leaders are largely insulated from the effects of the anti-graft probe and are capable of conducting combat operations that span a short timeframe (China Brief, November 11, 2025). However, a Taiwan campaign is unlikely to conclude within a matter of weeks and will probably be protracted beyond a month. A broad elimination of strategic-level leaders will be detrimental to the PLA’s decision-making capability, at least until positions are backfilled and officers are sufficiently trained. Even though the PLA has operational plans for multiple contingencies against Taiwan already prepared, it is extremely difficult to coordinate and resource all of the arms, equipment, and capabilities needed to sustain the fight, given that PLA joint training is still in its early phases (China Landpower Studies Center, January 12, February 12).
Joint capabilities have been further undermined by the removal of Liu, who was the head of the CMC Joint Staff Department, which serves as the command interface between the CMC and the theater commands, responsible for allocating and coordinating resources across theaters (The Paper, January 11, 2016; Military Review, September 2023; PRC Ministry of National Defense, accessed March 3). While the Eastern Theater Command is responsible for a Taiwan scenario, the PLA’s support branches—the aerospace, cyberspace, information, and joint logistics support forces—remain centralized because of their resource scarcity, and must be readily available to support other theater operations in any kind of contingency (Joint Forces Quarterly, October 14, 2021, April 17, 2025). Absent competent and experienced management, this precludes the Eastern Theater Command from successfully integrating these capabilities into training, and creates wartime challenges due to competing priorities (National Defense University, April 17, 2025).
Conclusion
Erosion of combat-experienced, strategic-level personnel at the top of the PLA, coupled with slower than anticipated progress on joint training, extending the potential timeline and success of a campaign to unify with Taiwan. Xi is not getting any younger, however, and feels the constraints of time on his ambition to take Taiwan (Foreign Affairs, January 30). In the medium term, as positions are backfilled and officers become accustomed to their new roles, analysts should not rule out the possibility that Xi may assume risk and embark on a campaign against Taiwan, whether the PLA is fully ready or not.
Notes
[1] Zhang was recorded to have served as a company commander (tactical) in the initial 1979 invasion of Vietnam, and attained a regimental command (operational) during the 1984 Two Mountain Border War of Laoshan. Liu was noted to have served as a company commander in the 1984 war.
[2] For more information on the joint targeting cycle and joint targeting in general, see Joint Publication 3-60 Joint Targeting (National Defense University, January 31, 2013). Targeting does not exclusively refer to indirect fire and is not restricted to the PLA Army and Rocket Force, but those examples are illustrative.
