Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Purge Topples Top Chinese Admiral

China’s military leadership is facing a major shake-up as President Xi Jinping intensifies his long-running anti-corruption campaign, targeting some of the highest-ranking figures in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The latest casualty is Admiral Miao Hua, a senior official who was recently dismissed from the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), the body that oversees China’s armed forces. 

A High-Profile Dismissal

On June 27, 2025, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency announced that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress had voted to remove Admiral Miao Hua from his position on the CMC, the country’s top military body chaired by Xi Jinping himself. Miao, 69, was the director of the CMC’s Political Work Department, a role that made him responsible for ensuring ideological loyalty and discipline within the PLA. His dismissal follows his suspension in November 2024 for “serious violations of discipline,” a phrase commonly used in China to indicate corruption. In April 2025, he was also expelled from the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, further cementing his fall from grace.

Miao’s ousting is a significant event, as he is one of the highest-ranking CMC officials to be purged since the 1960s, during the era of Mao Zedong. His removal marks him as the eighth CMC member to be dismissed since Xi took power in 2012, a stark contrast to the post-Mao era when such high-level purges were virtually unheard of.

A Broader Crackdown

Miao’s dismissal is part of a wider wave of anti-corruption purges targeting China’s military elite. In the past two years, Xi has removed two defense ministers, Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe, as well as two heads of the PLA Rocket Force, which manages China’s missile and nuclear capabilities. Several senior aerospace and defense industry executives have also been ousted from a key advisory body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Reports suggest that General He Weidong, a vice-chair of the CMC and one of the PLA’s top commanders, is also under investigation, though China’s defense ministry has not confirmed these claims.

Many of these purges appear linked to corruption in military procurement. Li Shangfu, who was sacked as defense minister in 2023 and expelled from the CCP in 2024, previously headed the PLA’s Equipment Development Department, a unit notorious for graft due to its role in managing defense contracts. Several of Li’s associates in the department and the broader military have also been removed, pointing to systemic issues in how the PLA acquires weapons and equipment. The Rocket Force, responsible for China’s nuclear arsenal, has been particularly hard-hit, with the Pentagon noting in a 2024 report that corruption may have disrupted the PLA’s modernization goals set for 2027.

Xi’s Anti-Corruption Mission

When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, promising to go after both “tigers and flies”—high-ranking officials and low-level bureaucrats alike. Since then, over 2.3 million government officials have been investigated.

Some critics claim that Xi’s crackdown is not just about eliminating corruption but also about consolidating power and ensuring loyalty to the CCP and himself. The PLA, as the armed wing of the party, is a critical focus of this effort. Xi has emphasized that “the party commands the gun,” a principle that underscores the military’s role in serving the CCP’s political agenda. However, some other analysts are of the view that the repeated purges of top officers, including those personally appointed by Xi, suggest that corruption remains deeply entrenched, and Xi understands that corruption in such critical institutions undermines China.