In this week’s episode of China Insider, Miles Yu unpacks the latest round of purges in the People’s Liberation Army—including of high-level Central Military Commission official Miao Hua—and what this means for the Chinese Communist Party. Next, Miles forecasts the upcoming summits of the BRICS (which includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and the QUAD (which includes the United States, Australia, India, and Japan). He also talks about the importance of collective dialogue to address global security issues and conflicts. Lastly, Miles comments on the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Qingdao, China, the SCO’s legitimacy among member nations, and the organization’s future under China’s leadership.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from Hudson Institute’s China Center, hosted by China Center Director and Senior Fellow, Dr. Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the Hudson Institute’s China Center. I am Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat, and their implications to the US and beyond.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
It is Tuesday, July 1st, and we have three topics this week. First, we unpack the latest round of PLA purges officially released by the National People’s Congress, with particular attention to high level military officials among China’s Central Military Commission. Second, we forecast the upcoming BRICS and QUAD summits and the importance of each in the context of evolving global security issues and ongoing conflicts. Lastly, we discussed the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting held last week in Qingdao which convened the defense ministers from all 10 member countries to discuss current global issues and build consensus. Miles, great to be with you again this week.
Miles Yu:
Nice to be with you again, Colin.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
First up this week, the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, voted to remove senior military official Miao Hua (苗华) from this Central Military Commission, China’s highest level military command body, related to investigations for serious violations of discipline and law that were announced back in November. While Miao was the highest profile purge, over a dozen PLA generals and defense industry executives have either been purged or implicated in related investigations. While PLA purges have been a consistent theme under Xi Jinping’s (习近平) tenure, Miles, what stands out about this latest round, and what happened here with Miao Hua?
Miles Yu:
Well, there [are] surprises. There [are] no surprises. Miao Hua’s demise was announced last November as you indicated, but at the time he was only accused of violating the party discipline. Now, he’s officially removed from the Central Military Commission by the National People’s Congress, which is [a] rubber stamp anyway, but he is now accused of not only violating party discipline but also violating the law. So, that means he’s going to go to jail, or disappear simply, or even worse. This is why this Miao Hua thing is [a] surprise, [and] not [a] surprise. This is also very significant because there are seven members of the Chinese Military Commission. By the way, this is not a state government body. This is a purely a party apparatus because the Chinese military, the people of the Liberation Army, the world’s largest armed force, is not a national defense force. It’s a party regime, stabilizing force. It is a hundred percent controlled by the General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping himself. Under the CMC, there are six members excluding Xi Jinping. He is the chair of everything. He’s the chair of the CMC. Now, there were six members since Xi Jinping’s new term starting in 2022. Three of the six have been purged. One: Li Shangfu (李尚福).This was the defense minister. Two: General He Weidong (何卫东). He was the Vice Chair of the CMC. And now, Miao Hua. Admiral Miao is very peculiar because his career [was] with the Chinese Army. Now, he was sort of planted to the Navy to be their number one Political Commissar, and now he’s the number one Political Commissar. He’s the Director of Political Affairs in the CMC, which is the most powerful because that position is in charge of officers’ promotion, and also, it’s central job is to guarantee ideological and the political loyalty of the entire Chinese military to the party leader, the Central Committee, and the Politburo. That’s why his purge is very significant. There are several other more things that stand out in this as well.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Yeah, like you mentioned, Admiral Miao Hua was a former senior admiral in the PLA Navy who was appointed Director of the political work department of the CMC and responsible for overseeing the ideological loyalty within the Armed Forces. And, like you mentioned, there’s only one of six Commissar-level positions among the CMC before Xi Jinping himself. With this all in mind, and considering this is allegedly the highest-ranking CMC official to be purged since the 1960s, I believe, and like you mentioned with He Weidong currently under investigation, Miles, what exactly is Xi’s strategy or end goal here, especially as this move concerns PLA ideological loyalty?
Miles Yu:
Well, you mentioned a very interesting point. Number one, it’s not entirely accurate to say Miao Hua is the highest ranked military official being purged since the 1960s. There’s a lot of them. You might say, if the CCP does not conduct a high-level purge, it would not be CCP. Since 1960, you might say Mao Zedong’s (毛泽东) right hand man, Marshall Lin Biao (林彪) was purged, and along with him a lot of generals by the thousands. And then of course when Xi Jinping came to power, he also purged close to a hundred senior military officials. Virtually, all these general and flag officers promoted by the previous CMC was purged. All of them were purged, including the two former Vice Chairman of the CMC under his predecessor Hu Jintao (胡锦涛). This is not really a surprise. As I say, Miao Hua is relatively lower-ranked than He Weidong, for example, who’s the Vice Chair, who’s the war-fighting General.
What’s significant here is this. Most of these guys purged by Xi Jinping are senior officials in the Chinese military in charge of procurement, logistics, or professional war-fighting leaders such as He Weidong. Now, this is one of the very rare moments when Xi Jinping purged the top Political Commissar. The guy who’s in charge of the entire Army’s loyalty to him. What’s also very peculiar here is this: Miao Hua is not an outsider of the Xi Jinping’s political circle. He has been with him most loyally since the 1980s and the 1990s. He was the guy who was the military top leader in charge of ideological affairs in Fujian Province when Xi Jinping was [the] number two man there. This guy has been all along the most loyal follower. The intense speculation now in the China-watching community is that, well, does this mean that Xi Jinping is out of power because he’s most loyal followers and leaders in the military have been purged maybe by somebody other than Xi Jinping himself? I’m very doubtful about that kind of narrative.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And kind of building on that narrative as well, we always want to unpack here what stands out as being different from previous rounds of purges here, especially as the PLA is concerned and Miles, I might also add on this, curious how this round, if at all, might impact the PLA’s plans for their current Indo-Pacific coercion and aggression, and even a potential invasion of Taiwan?
Miles Yu:
Before I answer your question directly, let me just add one more thing to what I just said earlier, that is, to purge the people that [are] promoted by the Chinese Communist party leaders is nothing really aberrational. It’s nothing unusual. It has been done numerously, Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) purged a lot of people close to him. This is a classic example of keeping your friends close but keeping your enemies closer. But then in this case, if you are too close to the party center, you are in high risk of being purged. Mao Zedong for example, purged Marshall Peng Dehuai (彭德怀) and also his right-handed man Liu Shaoqi(刘少奇), and also his right-hand man Lin Biao (林彪), as I said, the top military guy under Mao. All of those were diehards of Mao followers.
I think there is an inherent danger of being close to dictatorship. Anything that you do [and] you say might be construed as not overly, zealously loyal to the party leader, and then that could be danger. That could be the reason for your downfall. You see the same thing in, say, the Kim Jong Un’s North Korea and [in] Mao’s China, [and] today of course in Xi Jinping’s China. If you understand the inner logic of the PRC, [the] inner logic of the Communist Party of China, and then you understand a lot of things, including [the] current purge. I’m very doubtful of this speculation that Xi Jinping is out of power because his most loyal protégés are being purged. The reason is very simple: [it’s] because he is the person who purged all his protégés. Nobody other than himself could do this. That’s why I think he knows the speculation has a lot of wishful thinking in it.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Right. And then considering the impact that these purges might have on current PLA plans and operations for the Indo-Pacific, do you see these as being really impactful or might change the calculus of Beijing here and perhaps even in the context of a potential invasion of Taiwan?
Miles Yu:
Yeah, I think this of course is a little bit theoretical. I do think, though, this kind of a perch on a constant level is going to be dramatically detrimental to Chinese military morale. Now, this is hard to see because you cannot really show less enthusiasm for the Chairman because [of] that kind of regime. However, in the actual life and death and when opportunity arises, I think this going to be tremendously significant. Remember, I’ll give you one example. In the Korean War, the Chinese soldiers were fanatic fighters because they were indoctrinated. However, when the opportunity arose, when they were given the opportunity to defect, when they knew they could cross the bridge of no return, they do it. That’s why you got a huge number of Chinese soldiers fighting against Americans in the Korean War and they defected. 27,000 of them. Most of them, a lot of them, were not captured, but they just walked into the American camp. That’s one reason why I think in the actual fighting scenario, you might see this kind of collapse of the frontline. You see the similar things throughout the military history, World War I Eastern Front, World War II, a lot of places too. That’s one reason I think the dictatorial regime[s] have this soft spot and this is one of their biggest vulnerabilities.
Now, on the other hand, though, I think this will also create a lot of confusion within the Chinese rank and file of the military. That’s because, I mean, this had the same effect of the purge of Lin Biao in September 1971, when Mao’s most loyal follower, his number one successor choice suddenly turned out to be a traitor. The guy tried to defect to the Soviet Union, the China’s ideological enemy at the time, and the whole nation was dumfounded. As a result of that, Mao’s reputation and his credibility within the Chinese nation dropped dramatically. If it were not for Richard Nixon [and] Henry Kissinger who went to China to rescue Mao’s regime and his legitimacy, I think that regime would’ve been in serious trouble, maybe would’ve been gone a long time ago. This is why I think the purge of its most senior military leaders has caused a black cloud in the minds of the Chinese citizens as to Xi Jinping’s credibility and basically his of worthiness as a leader of the nation, let alone as he would boast that he’s the leader of the world. I think in that kind of aspect, the impact is profound.
Now, about Taiwan, of course Xi Jinping purged a lot of people who are capable, who he put in charge of the Taiwan invasion plan, like as I said, general He Weidong, who was the commander of the third war theater [command], which will be directly in charge of the Taiwan invasion, and he purged him. Li Shangfu, who was the equipment guy and the former rocket force guy, and the former Defense Minister Wei Fenghe (魏凤和) was also purged. Those guys were very capable. They were in charge of the rocket force. In the Taiwan scenario, rockets will play a very insignificant role. This is sort of a consensus among virtually all military leaders on all sides. I think Xi Jinping is trying to sort of do something to guarantee his political legitimacy, but he’s worried about the loyalty of the party, of the military, to him. In the meantime, he basically shoots himself in his foot. That’s one reason why I think he is not really that brilliant [as] a political leader. I mean, you can rank him among some of the most idiotic military leaders in recent history. Hitler, for example. That’s one of the reasons why I think this kind of massive purges will do no good to the Chinese Communist Party.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
With He Weidong on deck there with the investigations currently underway, it’ll be interesting to see how those variables and calculus change, at least from Beijing’s perspective. But moving onto our next topic for today, the 2025 BRICS Summit is set to be held early next week on July 6th and 7th with member nation Brazil playing host. To briefly recap, a meeting between the foreign ministers of each country was held back on April 28th and 29th, which failed to produce a joint statement at the time, but at least noted concerns over the rise of protectionist trade practices and policies from the United States and other global economic issues. But miles, what should we know about next week’s BRICS summit here in Brazil?
Miles Yu:
Well, BRICS Summit in Brazil is noted by the conspirators’ absence of a two of the leaders of that group. Vladmir Putin will not go because he’s a war criminal on the run, and also Chinese President Xi Jinping is not going. I think the reasons are probably more profound than usual. I think BRICS right now is in a major identity crisis. BRICS was created and led by China and Russia initially, mostly as an economic cooperative group. But now, China and Russia, particularly China, is very gung ho, trying very hard to turn it into a military and anti-west alliance. That makes some of the members very, very uncomfortable, particularly the India and Brazil, who are not by any means anti-west. That’s one reason why I think China and India don’t get along eye to eye at all. As to the nature and mission of BRICS, China insisted that they should add a lot of other members to the group. There are 10 members over there, but right now I think there is no cohesion. The consensus so-called of the BRICS, the so-called “BRICS consensus” doesn’t really exist. That’s one reason I think the Brazil summit is very critical and maybe a turning point for BRICS as a whole.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And it’s not just BRICS and even NATO holding summits lately. The QUAD Summit is also currently underway at the moment here in Washington, including foreign ministers from Australia, India, and Japan to bolster efforts for deterrence and Indo-Pacific security. To briefly recap here as well, back in January, the quad ministers recommitted to working together and set regular intervals for preparedness audits, if you will, all around the common concern of China’s growing power encountering Beijing as the organization’s top priority. Miles, while it’s not an analogous organization to BRICS exactly, QUAD’s importance is certainly on the rise now more than ever. What’s important about this week’s summit in Washington and what are the organization’s immediate priorities for the Indo-Pacific security?
Miles Yu:
Well, first of all, this quad summit is held in Washington D.C. That’s a very [big] difference because QUAD [means], even though there is no leadership designation, the United States is the only country capable and willing to stop China’s aggression in a vast area of the globe. So that’s why United States is essentially the leader of the quad. However, having said that, there is a tremendous consensus in QUAD about the common threat from China. The common threat is the foundation for common defense. Even though QUAD is officially built as a QUAD dialogue among the four countries, Japan, India, Australia, and the United States, but a lot of [the] topics is about security, it’s about technology, and it’s about the supply chain independence and maritime rules. Those issues, they all have one target, that’s China. That’s basically the mission of QUAD, but also QUAD is a potential breakthrough to a new alliance system in [the] Asia-Pacific. United States is the leader of a global alliance system. In Europe we have NATO, and in other places we have all kinds of frameworks. In Asia, US alliance system is overwhelmingly and exclusively bilateral; not multilateral. QUAD is really an initial attempt to transform that kind of a bilateral aligned system into a multilateral aligned system. That means all members in this new alliance grouping will be agreed to a collective multilateral defense pledge. That’s actually very important, but of course we’re many steps away from that reality. I think a quad has this potential to become a NATO-like multilateral collective defense pact.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
Moving to our last topic for today and keeping with today’s summit theme, last week, China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization convened defense ministers from all 10 member countries, including Iran and Russia in Qingdao. Chinese defense Minister Dong Jun framed the meeting as a counterweight to the world in “chaos and instability”. Before we get too far into the details of last week’s meeting, Miles, what is the SCO’s mission and its importance to China specifically?
Miles Yu:
Well, Shanghai Cooperation Organization was funded in Shanghai over two decades ago, and initially Russia was the presumed leader because the focus of Shanghai Cooperation is on Central Asia. Central Asia was Russia’s sort of backyard, as Russia see it. China over the years, however, has completely surpassed Russia as the de facto leader of [the] SCO. Not only it’s obvious from its name, but also from its actual operation. China basically is bankrolling this organization. China also has snapped some of the central Asia Republics from former Soviet Union to its own political orbits, particularly Kazakhstan or many of the other “-stans”. This is basically China trying to build this into an anti-west, NATO-like security alliance. You can see China over the years has tried very hard to invite all the members China view as anti-west, particularly countries like Iran. Iran is now part of the SCO.
As you say, the news coming out of Qingdao last week was about India refusing to sign onto the joint statement. This is actually a very big deal because China actually co-opted India into joining [the] SCO, and India joined [the] SCO. I personally don’t think India really cares about [the] SCO. India cares about joining the SCO ‘of the day’mostly because of Pakistan. Because Pakistan has been a member of the SCO, China could really join hands with Pakistan to do a number on India. I think India joined SCO in order to prevent Pakistan [and] China going even closer. That’s one reason the membership in SCO of India is very significant because I don’t know is this going to be very detrimental to India [or] to China. I certainly think India has the money of its own.
The reason the India Defense Minister rejected this Qingdao joint statement of SCO is because China wants to use this to promote its Belt and Road Initiative. India violently rejected this because [the] Belt and Road Initiative goes through this controversial area of Kashmir. Kashmir [has been] a focal point of contention between India and Pakistan since 1948. You got this problem. That’s one reason why India is very sensitive, super sensitive about this. Now, there’s nobody in the world that [is] geo-strategically closer to China than Pakistan, as we said before on this program. I think that’s why India is very leery about this Pakistan-Chinese alliance to further its hostility against India. This is not really a surprise to me, even though many experts say this is surprising. I think SCO is also like BRICS. It’s in a stage of some kind of identity crisis because it lacks cohesion - not only lack of common interest but also lack of common values to defend.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And to round out the conversation this week, China has framed this meeting in particular more so as a warmup event for the Tianjin SCO summit scheduled later in the fall of this year. Like you mentioned, given the now 24-year history of the SCO, it might be a good point to put the organization in perspective here. So, Miles, where does the SCO currently stand in terms of regional and global influence? What can we expect from China’s leadership in the organization moving forward?
Miles Yu:
SCO is almost like a face-saving measure for China right now. It does not have some of the real geopolitical significance because the core members of SCO are the central Asian countries, particularly the “-stans”, China wants to build this whole thing as an anti-west, anti-G7, [and] anti-NATO alliance. It didn’t work because there was no global response. That’s why every time there’s a G7 meeting, there is QUAD,[or] whatever meeting hosted by Western democracies, China wants to have some kind of appearance of a pageantry. They would host something like China-Central Asia Summit. This is one of the things. They wanted to have a SCO summit, but as I say, SCO is kind of in shambles, in disarray, in some sense, with memberships like India. That’s why Xi Jinping wants to use this as the core members of the SCO in Central Asia to stage all kinds of summits between China and the central Asia countries. Central Asia countries are among the poorest in the world, and Xi Jinping went there to spend billions and billions of dollars on those countries just for the appearance of pageantry and victory. I think this is a sure display of glory on [the] part of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
That’s unfortunately all the time we have for this week. Miles, as always, thank you again for your expertise and insight on these critical issues. Looking forward to speaking with you again next week.
Miles Yu:
Well, thank you. Looking forward. By the way, happy Party’s Day. Today is July 1st. That’s the huge birthday for the Chinese Communist Party, which has just announced a couple days ago that its membership has reached 100 million. That’s one of the bigger problems that the world has to deal with.
Colin Tessier-Kay:
And on that seminal note, see you again next week.
Miles Yu:
Bye-bye.