Senior commanders in focus as military ideology drive aims to ‘unite hearts and forge souls’, urges war readiness
China’s top military command has rolled out a major education campaign to instil political loyalty to President Xi Jinping – an initiative aimed primarily at the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
In a notice on Tuesday to all personnel in the world’s second largest military force, the political work department of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) said the campaign should focus on the “key few” – a term the ruling Communist Party uses to describe senior officials with decision-making power on critical matters.
The CMC, the top decision-making and command body for the Chinese armed forces, is chaired by Xi.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
“[We should] focus on the ‘key few’, to strengthen [their] learning and ideological transformation, to … truly achieve greater actual results in learning, understanding, believing and application [of Xi’s military thought],” the notice issued on the final day of China’s Lunar New Year break said.
The notice said the PLA must continue to use Xi’s political thought to “unite hearts and forge souls”, and study his thoughts on strengthening the military “deeply and persistently” by reading his original works repeatedly.
It also advised the PLA to stay focused on its centenary goals, put lessons into practice and action, and carry out special education focused on the beliefs and values of officials and soldiers, while ensuring combat readiness.
The party unveiled its new military modernisation goals in October 2020. But the lack of detail triggered speculation by US defence officials that Beijing was preparing to take Taiwan by force by 2027, the PLA’s 100th anniversary.
In past announcements about its military development plans, China has vowed to “basically complete national defence and military modernisation by 2035”, and achieve a “world-class military by mid-century”.
Hong Kong-based military expert Liang Guoliang said that – besides advancements in weapons and equipment – ideology and political education had been the major focus of the CMC since a considerable reorganisation of its command structure, “to ensure the PLA’s morale remained high”.
“Political work has long been regarded as the ‘magic weapon’ of the PLA,” he said. “The lessons of the Russia-Ukraine war have further illustrated the importance of this, as we can see soldiers will not have the fighting spirit if they do not know what they are fighting for.”
“The PLA has been implementing smaller tactical units that can fight on their own. In the past, the smallest was the combined battalion, but now it is down to platoon level,” Liang said. “That means the soldiers will have fewer comrades to fight alongside [them] … everyone in the squad must have stronger belief in the cause.”
The latest ideological campaign follows the CMC’s political work conference last June, where Xi vowed to root out disloyal elements in the military.
“We must make it clear that the barrels of the guns must always be in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the party … And we must make it clear that there is no place for corrupt elements in the military,” Xi said in an address to key military officials and political commissars at the conference.
A Beijing-based military observer said the downfall of the PLA’s political and ideological chief, Miao Hua, could be one of the factors behind the delay in launching the follow-up education campaign since that conference.
Miao, the top Chinese general at the CMC in charge of ideology and personnel changes within the military, was suspended from duty and placed under investigation for suspected “serious violations of discipline”, the defence ministry said in November.
“Miao appeared in the CMC’s top political works conference promoting loyalty and integrity in June. He was certainly the man designated to roll out the follow-up loyalty campaign then. But his disciplinary investigation must have disrupted everything,” said the observer, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Miao was the second CMC member to be removed from his post since the current line-up took office in 2022. The first was former defence minister Li Shangfu, who was fired last October. Li and his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, were both expelled from the party in June for “serious violations of discipline”.
The removal of Miao and Li has left the seven-member CMC with a rare double vacancy and only two serving members, apart from Xi and the two vice-chairmen – a circumstance not seen in decades.
“According to past practices, the two CMC deputy chairmen – Zhang Youxia and He Weidong – were likely to share the workload on ideological work in Miao’s absence,” he added, noting that they took over China’s military diplomacy duties after Li was placed under investigation.
Besides the CMC purges, nine senior generals – including past or current top commanders of the PLA Rocket Force, the former air force commander, and a few CMC officials in charge of equipment development and procurement – were removed from their posts during the National People’s Congress in December 2023, signalling a sweeping anti-corruption drive.
There were also signs that several senior managers with state-owned arms suppliers could be implicated in the campaign, as they did not follow the custom of sending seasonal greetings to their colleagues during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Yu Jianfeng, chairman of China National Nuclear Corporation; Zhou Xinmin, chairman of China Aviation Industry Corporation; Xu Xianping, chairman of China Ordnance Equipment Group; and Liu Dashan, general manager of China Ordnance Industry Group, were all no-shows at their company’s seasonal celebrations, according to searches of their official reports.
In January, the profiles of Hao Zhaoping, general manager of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, and Yang Wei, a deputy general manager at AVIC and lead engineer of China’s J-20 stealth fighter, were taken down from the company website without explanation.
The moves came after former AVIC chairman Tan Ruisong was placed under investigation for corruption in August, having been removed from his post in 2023.
None of these defence industry leaders have been seen in public for months.
“How to restore the belief and values among the soldiers and low-ranking officials after so many top generals fell will be very challenging for the new ideological campaign,” the Beijing-based observer said.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.