Xi looks to tighten grip after scandals shake China's military elite

Current wave of probes has reached some commanders handpicked by leader, suggesting recurrent problems

- Chris Buckley

TAIPEI - Outwardly, China's military has never been stronger. Its naval ships venture farther across the oceans. Its nuclear force grows by about 100 warheads every year. Its military flights around Taiwan are increasingly frequent and intimidating. Every few months, China unveils new weapons, like a prototype stealth fighter or newfangled landing barges.

Internally, though, China's military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission — the Communist Party council that controls the armed forces — appear to be vacant after members were arrested or simply disappeared.

That internal turbulence is testing President Xi Jinping's effort, going back more than a decade, to build a military that is loyal, modern, combat-ready and fully under his control.

Mr Xi has set a 2027 target for modernising the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, and also — according to some US officials — for gaining the ability to invade Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

The current wave of investigations and removals has reached some commanders handpicked by Mr Xi, suggesting recurrent problems in a system that he has tried for years to clean up.

In the first years after Mr Xi came to power in 2012, he launched an intense campaign to clean up corruption in the military and impose tighter control, culminating in a big reorganisation.

"When Xi Jinping sees his own men making mistakes, he is likely to be especially furious," Associate Professor Joseph Torigian at American University who has studied Chinese leaders' relations with the military, said of Mr Xi.

"Control over the military is so existential. It's inherently explosive. That's why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed," he said.