Purging close associates of retired high-ranking cadres signals the cadre’s waning influence, as well as potentially accumulating incriminating evidence against the cadre. By contrast, secretaries of current central leaders are not investigated prior to their patron to avoid invoking fear.

Key Takeaways

• Purging close associates of retired high-ranking cadres signals the cadre’s waning influence and serves the purpose of accumulating incriminating evidence against the cadre
• Investigations into high-ranking cadres carries risk eroding elite cohesion, as cadres’ confidence in their own political safety diminishes and they become more likely to draw up contingency plans once they realize nobody in the system is untouchable
• Acting on incriminating evidence on centrally-managed officials requires the approval of China’s paramount leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Background

One of the key patterns in political purges in the PRC are the order in which patron-clients are purged. Secretaries (mishu) of central leaders, both current and retired, are typically investigated after their leader. This occurs for two primary reasons. For current leaders, non-public investigations into their secretaries or other inner circle personnel will raise alarm and trigger contingency planning, in most cases involving an attempt to flee or commit suicide. For retired leaders, public investigations into their secretaries are often meant to signal the leaders’ waning influence within the Party.

Disciplinary investigations follow’s the “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” phenomenon. Political progression in the CCP requires patronage networks with exchanges of favors. As a result, investigation into any network exposes a spiderweb of implicated officials. This is important because it gives the ultimate decisionmakers within the system leverage and freedom to decide who to investigate and who to preserve. Some crucial considerations are the extent to which one can investigate a political network without risking retribution from different cliques or endangering the legitimacy of the Party itself.

To illustrate these points, we will analyze the investigation into Wang Qishan’s patronage network and examine implications of recent military purges across the PLA.

Purges of Wang Qishan patronage network

Investigation into Wang Qishan’s network serve two purposes: to embarrass Wang and signal his waning influence, and to stockpile compromising material that could one day be used as leverage against Wang should he come under investigation himself.

Wang Qishan, long regarded as the Party’s financial troubleshooter, was famously a childhood friend of Xi Jinping and served as his most trusted political aide during Xi’s first term as General Secretary. As head of the powerful Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) from 2012 to 2017, Wang spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that brought down both “tigers” — high-ranking officials such as Zhou Yongkang, the former Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (政法委) — and “flies,” an abundance of low-ranking officials throughout the country. In a political system plagued with corruption, many analysts have concluded that the campaign was at least as much a political maneuver as a genuine clean-up effort, serving to eliminate opposing factions and consolidate Xi’s grip on power.

Since Wang Qishan’s retirement from the Politburo Standing Committee and CCDI in October 2017, a series of investigation into his patronage network unfolded over the following years. The first domino fell in October 2020 when Dong Hong, a close confidant and underling of Wang Qishan, was placed under investigation by the same organization of which he was once an inspection group leader. Dong’s relationship with Wang Qishan spanned more than two decades as he followed Wang across several postings across China.¹

Interestingly, some analysis by China watchers suggest that Dong’s investigation was not an indication of a “Xi-Wang split.”² One article traced Dong Hong’s career progression over the past 30 years and argued that Dong Hong and Wang Qishan did not share as close a relationship as the public believes. The article posits that Dong Hong’s career had plateaued prior to his joining the CCDI and, had his relationship with Wang Qishan been closer, would have seen Dong serve as a top aide or secretary general under Wang. However, this argument overlooks the stringent regulations governing appointments of leadership secretaries, which are tied to the civil service ranking of both the official and the secretary. The Central Organization Department issues detailed stipulations covering the promotion of civil servants, the permitted number of secretaries at each rank, and eligibility requirements such as age, length of service, and locality.

In the case of Dong Hong, his position as Group Leader of the 12th Central Inspection Group within the CCDI from March 2014 to July 2015 was at the deputy-ministerial/sub-provincial level (副省部级).³ Under Central Organization Department regulations, secretaries of provincial-ministerial level officials may not hold a civil service rank above deputy-department/sub-bureau level (副厅局级), while secretaries of deputy-ministerial/sub-provincial level officials may not exceed division level (正处级). Tracing Wang Qishan’s political career, his entry into the 17th Politburo as Executive Vice Premier in 2008 placed him at sub-national level (副国级) and his subsequent elevation to the 18th Politburo Standing Committee as CCDI Secretary brought him to national level (正国级). Meanwhile, Dong Hong had already reached deputy-ministerial/sub-provincial rank by 2006 through his appointment as deputy director of the Central Committee’s Literature Research Office, a ministerial-level organ. Given this parallel career trajectory, it is almost certainly the case that Dong was ineligible to serve as Wang’s formal secretary from the early 2000s onward. Nevertheless, his role within the CCDI suggests that he enjoyed Wang’s full trust and confidence, serving as a close aide without the official designation.

In addition to Dong Hong, several others with ties to Wang Qishan were investigated by the CCDI in ensuing years:

• In April 2022, Tian Huiyu (田惠宇), former President of China Merchants Bank, was placed under investigation. Tian had served as a secretary for Wang Qishan more than two decades ago while Wang was president of China Construction Bank.
• In May 2025, Bi Jingquan (毕井泉), former Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council, was placed under investigation by the CCDI and subsequently removed from the Party in December 2025.⁴ Bi had previously served as a secretary for Wang Qishan while Wang was Vice Premier.⁵
• In March 2026, Zhou Liang (周亮), Vice Minister of the National Financial Regulatory Administration and long-term secretary of Wang Qishan, was placed under investigation by the CCDI. Zhou is a well-known associate of Wang’s, having served under Wang in various postings across Guangdong, Hainan, Beijing, and finally as the CCDI’s Organization Department head in 2015.

Perhaps the more pertinent question is not how closely these individuals were connected to Wang Qishan, but rather what the purging of his associates is meant to accomplish — especially provided that Wang is now a 77-year old retired politician with no obvious political faction or lingering influence. Two assumptions seem reasonable: first, that these associates are targeted because of their ties to Wang Qishan, and second, any investigations into a former Politburo Standing Committee member’s patronage network must carry Xi Jinping’s approval — whether tacit or explicit. Given that four aforementioned individuals served under Wang Qishan at one point or another, they are almost certainly privy to sensitive information about Wang. Ultimately, these investigations appear to serve two purposes: to embarrass Wang and signal his waning influence, and stockpile compromising material that could one day be used as leverage (把柄) against him should he come under investigation himself.

A question raised by China watchers is whether Wang Qishan will one day come under investigation himself. This is unlikely for the aforementioned reason that purges into his patronage network have achieved the desired effects of embarrassing Wang and signaling his political decline. Additionally, high-ranking purges carry a significant tradeoff of eroding other cadres’ confidence in their own political safety, incentivizing them to make contingency plans once they realize that no one in the system is untouchable. Perhaps the clearest example is the investigation of former Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission Secretary Zhou Yongkang, who was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee from 2007 to 2012. Zhou Yongkang became the first (former) Politburo Standing Committee member to face formal investigation and prosecution since the reform era, breaking an unspoken rule in Chinese politics known as “刑不上常委” or “punishment does not extend to [members of] the [Politburo] Standing Committee.” While no other Politburo Standing Committee has been investigated since Zhou, breaking this precedent has likely shaken the confidence of other high-ranking cadres.

Purges within the military

The past few years have witnessed the most significant purge of senior military officials since the investigation of retired Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairmen Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou more than a decade ago. Most China watchers attribute Guo and Xu’s downfall primarily to their ties with the Shanghai clique and former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, compounded by Xi’s broader effort to consolidate power during his first term. The current round of purges is strikingly different — the investigations into sitting CMC vice chairmen He Weidong and Zhang Youxia are particularly notable given that both men appeared to be staunch Xi loyalists who were ousted mid-term. While theories and speculation on the causes of recent purges are plenty,⁶ the following section examines implications of these high-level military purges from Xi’s perspective and offers some theories moving forward.

There is plenty of existing analysis on factionalism within the PLA, including speculation on which camps of personnel belonged to Zhang Youxia or He Weidong. While it is difficult for an outsider to confirm the validity and extent to which these factions exist, it is reasonable to assume that investigations into lower-ranked officials surfaces incriminating evidence on higher-ranking patrons. However, whether or not decisionmakers act on these evidences is a carefully considered political maneuver, a point we will examine in more detail in the following section. In the case of investigations into particularly high-ranking military officials such as Zhang Youxia or He Weidong, the decisionmaker with the final say (拍板权) is undoubtedly Xi. While the true reason for He Weidong’s removal is unclear, a possible explanation for Zhang Youxia’s demise is the concept of political counterweights.

The practice of using political counterweights is deeply ingrained in Chinese politics. Historically, Mao was known to be masterful at inciting and orchestrating political infighting to solidify his own grasp on power; the two most notable cases in the Mao era were the political counterweights of Lin Biao to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping to Zhou Enlai. In Xi’s China, some have speculated that Politburo Standing Committee members Li Qiang and Cai Qi serve a similar purpose in their positions as Premier and Director of the CCP General Office, respectively.⁷ When the same logic is applied to the military, the CMC has seen at least two concurrent generals serve as vice chairmen at any given time since its establishment in 1982. He Weidong’s removal several months prior had left Zhang Youxia without a political counterweight in the CMC, fueling widespread speculation that Zhang was accumulating enough power to cause problems for Xi. Whether Xi genuinely believes the threats posed by Zhang is difficult to verify — in the end, the optics alone may have been sufficient cause for action.

An interesting point to consider is how these widespread purges will affect incoming cohorts of military leaders. Just weeks after the announced investigation into Zhang Youxia, the Central Intelligence Agency published a video targeting Chinese military personnel.⁸ The CIA is undoubtedly aware that widespread purges increases the likelihood of informants hedging their individual safety with backup plans; it is reasonable to assume that those promoted to fill vacant military leadership positions would account for the possibility that they themselves may one day be targets of investigation. As a result, any ensuing high-level purges of military personnel may well correspond with an increase in leaked military intelligence, whether through public or private channels.

A point seldom mentioned is the possibility that the remaining CMC vice chairman position be replaced by a civilian to signal potential succession planning by Xi. This pattern follows the previous two CCP General Secretaries, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao, both of whom served as CMC vice chairmen for several years as heir apparent. While Xi has by no means signaled any potential candidates, the incoming counterpart(s) to Zhang Shengmin as CMC vice chairman would be an interesting tell on Xi’s succession plans, insofar as any such plans exist.

When weighing corruption investigations within the military, Xi faces several key considerations:

• Does Xi possess the military backing necessary to take down generals within the army?
• How deep does Xi go when it comes to investigating the networks of military officials?
• To what extent do purges within the military shake up the troops’ morale?

If one makes the reasonable assumption that Xi is a calculated and rational decision-maker, it must be the case that Xi believes the benefits of the PLA purges outweigh the risks. Whether these benefits correspond to military readiness, political safety, or succession planning remains to be seen.

The Logic of Purges

A crucial assumption we make in our assessment of China’s discipline inspection process is that acting on incriminating evidence on centrally-managed officials requires the approval of China’s paramount leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping.

An important, often undiscussed question, is whether an investigation into high-ranking officials is a top-down or bottom-up process. By top-down we mean orders given by Xi Jinping to find dirt and get rid of an official for political reasons; by bottom-up we refer to incriminating evidence against a high-ranking official that surfaces from investigations into lower-ranking officials. If the former is true, what are the underlying motives for Xi to personally oversee and initiate the investigation of certain cadres? If the latter is true, who decides whether to present the evidence to Xi Jinping? How does someone within the discipline inspection commission leadership gauge whether Xi would be receptive to incriminating evidence?

To clarify, “high-ranking” officials in this context refers to centrally-managed cadres (中管干部), whose appointments are reviewed and approved by the Central Organization Department. Centrally-managed cadres are predominantly above the sub-provincial/deputy-ministerial level (副省部级), with the exception of a select few important centrally-managed bureau-level (中管正局级) positions. The distinction between initiating an investigation and acting on evidence is important. Cases against high-ranking officials may be created due to factionalism and patron-client relationships, but the decision to launch an investigation must necessarily carry the tacit or explicit approval from Xi. From the case studies above, a crucial assumption we make in our assessment of China’s discipline inspection process is that acting on incriminating evidence on centrally-managed officials requires the approval of China’s paramount leader, General Secretary Xi Jinping.

We make this assumption primarily based on scale. Based on statistics released by the CCDI and National Supervisory Commission in January 2026, there were a total of over 1.012 million cases initiated during 2025. Of the 1.012 million cases, 115 were officials above sub-provincial/deputy-ministerial level, 5,016 were at the bureau/department level (厅局级), and an increasing amount at the county/division level and below.⁹ A further subset of 69 officials above sub-provincial/deputy-ministerial level and 4,155 officials at the bureau/department level were disciplined. It would seem implausible for Xi to personally approve disciplinary actions against thousands of lower ranking officials, whereas oversight into a hundred or so high-ranking cases is far more manageable.

Delegating authority for CCDI officials to investigate lower-ranking secretaries or patron-client relationships require careful consideration and a deep understanding of internal factionalism within the system. Due to the opaqueness of the CCDI and its processes, it is near impossible for an outsider to have a strong understanding of its system. However, a reasonable assumption is that officials assigned to work on high-level cases must possess a strong understanding of the political background, patronage networks, and many other details of investigated cadres.

For an important and opaque organization like the CCDI, a few important questions remain:

• How do signoffs within CCDI leadership, the Politburo, and the Politburo Standing Committee work when it comes to investigations? To what extent does collective decision-making exist, if any?
• Are investigations initiated through a top-down or bottom-up process? Specifically, to what extent are investigations initiated through bottom-up, lower-level complaints as compared to top-down, politically motivated directives?

Key terms

• Fighting “tigers” and “flies” (打虎拍蝇) — anti-corruption crackdown on high-ranking cadres (tigers) and low-ranking officials (flies)
• “Punishment does not extend to [members of] the [Politburo] Standing Committee” (刑不上常委) — an unspoken rule in Chinese politics whereby disciplinary measures do not apply to members of the Politburo Standing Committee. This unspoken rule was broken only once in the past four decades, where the investigation into former Secretary of the CPLC, Zhou Yongkang, brought down a retired PBSC member and demoted the position of CPLC Secretary from the Politburo Standing Committee to the Politburo.
• Centrally-managed cadres (中管干部) — officials whose appointments are reviewed and approved by the Central Organization Department. Centrally-managed cadres are predominantly above the sub-provincial/deputy-ministerial level.