The Central Military Commission, the top decision-making body overseeing the People’s Liberation Army, is set for a leadership reshuffle after the downfall of most of its members.
President Xi Jinping is now in his third term as chairman of the commission. But now five of the other six members of the commission – who were all originally expected to serve a five-year term, ending in 2027 – are no longer active.
Last month Zhang Youxia, first-ranked vice-chairman of the CMC and China’s most senior uniformed general, and Liu Zhenli, chief of its Joint Staff Department, were placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption.
What is the Central Military Commission?
China’s top military decision-making and command body performs many of the functions a ministry of defence carries out in other countries. Its mandate includes decisions on strategy, development, equipment, personnel and funding.
In China, the Ministry of National Defence is mainly used for diplomatic and public relations purposes and the defence minister is usually – though not always – a member of the commission.
The CMC consists of 15 departments, such as the Joint Staff Department and the Logistical Support Department. It also oversees the headquarters of the PLA’s five theatre commands, its different service branches and several affiliated research institutions and academies.
Above them all sits a seven-member committee, which is elected every five years by the Communist Party’s national congress.
Apart from Xi, the other members are all uniformed generals, each in charge of different aspects of the commission’s duties.
In 2022, Zhang and He Weidong were appointed as the two vice-chairmen.
However, He, who was also a member of the Politburo, and the PLA’s top ideological chief Miao Hua were removed from the commission and party over corruption investigations just days before a major party meeting in October.
Former defence minister Li Shangfu had already been removed from the commission and other roles in 2023.
The downfall of Zhang and Liu – just seven months shy of the People’s Liberation Army’s 99th anniversary – marks an unprecedented near-total wipeout of the CMC.
This leaves Zhang Shengmin, the PLA disciplinary head who has taken over one of the vice-chairman’s roles, as the last man standing apart from Xi.
What other command bodies are there?
There is another CMC – the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China – which answers to the National People’s Congress.
But in fact, the two CMCs effectively function as one body, with both having the same membership performing the same roles.
This arrangement was an attempt to fit the party’s absolute control of the military into a modern constitutional state structure.
Why is the party’s CMC so powerful?
Mao Zedong established the principle “the party commands the gun” when the Red Army was founded in the 1920s.
As the Red Army evolved into the PLA and won the Chinese civil war, this principle was written into the constitution.
Nowadays, the party retains absolute leadership over the PLA and all other armed forces in China, such as the People’s Armed Police.
The most recent major reform of the CMC started in 2015, with Xi overhauling the armed forces and restructuring the commission.
What role does the CMC chairman perform?
Since the party holds absolute leadership over the PLA and all other armed forces in China, the chairman of the CMC is the ultimate leader of China’s military forces.
Underscored by another of his well-known quotes – “political power grows out from the barrel of a gun” – Mao chaired the commission and its forerunners from the 1930s until his death in 1976.
Other Chinese leaders have also led the commission. For example, Deng Xiaoping led the commission and acted as paramount leader throughout the 1980s, often without holding a senior government role.
In 1982, the constitution gave the commission’s chairman supreme decision-making power over the military and placed the post at the top of the PLA’s organisational hierarchy.
How does the chairman’s role operate?
As soon as Xi took over in 2012, the CMC’s rules were revised to explicitly establish the so-called chairman responsibility system, designed to further “guarantee the party’s absolute leadership over the military”.
This was consolidated by an amendment to the party constitution passed in 2017, which stated that “the chair of the Central Military Commission assumes overall responsibility for the work of the commission”.
Other key aspects of the system are that the chairman exercises unified leadership over the armed forces and that all major issues concerning national defence and military development are decided by him.
More recently, the system has been reinforced by a series of party documents.
According to the revised CMC work rules, members of the body must maintain absolute political loyalty to the chairman and implement all directives issued.
They must also seek approval for travel, leave and public appearances and provide regular reports of their activities.
When being put under investigation in January, Zhang Youxia and Liu were accused by the official PLA Daily of “trampling on and harming” the chairman responsibility system. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
