Xi Tightens Grip: China Removes Top Generals and Officials in Sweeping Purge

In a massive shake-up of China’s elite, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee officially stripped six high-ranking military generals and two prominent civilian officials of their legislative posts on June 27, 2026. This move, reported by state-run news agency Xinhua, provides no specific reasons for the dismissals, but analysts view it as a direct escalation of President Xi Jinping’s long-running and aggressive anti-corruption campaign. Among those removed were figures once considered central to China’s military-industrial and political machinery, signaling that the purge is tightening its grip on the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the financial sector. The list of dismissed military officials is significant, particularly due to their strategic roles: General Xu Xueqiang: Head of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission, responsible for overseeing the acquisition and testing of military technology, and commander-in-chief of China’s Manned Space Programme. Generals Li Fengbiao (Western Theatre Command) and Guo Puxiao (PLA Air Force): High-ranking political commissars who held critical influence over regional security and air operations. The list also included Wang Kangping (Eastern Theatre Command), Zhang Minghua (Cyberspace Force), and Yin Hongxing (Army). The purge extended beyond the military, as the NPC also removed Li Yunze, the former head of China’s top financial regulator, and Ma Xingrui, a high-profile Politburo member who had been under investigation since April. This wide-reaching sweep highlights a clear message from Beijing: no institution, whether it is the military, the financial regulatory system, or the political core, is immune from Xi’s relentless drive for absolute loyalty and ideological conformity. With this latest wave, observers note that Xi is effectively consolidating his power by systematically removing figures who may have fallen out of favor or become liabilities in his broader effort to ensure absolute party control over the armed forces. When Beijing’s high-command suddenly vanishes under the convenient banner of corruption, it’s not an anti-graft drive; it’s a masterclass in political survival. In the CCP’s theatre of power, corruption is merely the excuse used to silence dissent and ensure that every seat in the military and finance sector is occupied by a loyalist or a ghost. Whether these men took bribes or just stood in the wrong shadow, the message from the top is clear: in Xi’s China, the only thing more dangerous than being corrupt is being expendable.