Place a close friend as number two and generals with combat experience with a view to a hypothetical invasion of the island
Power in China resides with the Communist Party, but rests with the Army. For this reason, its XX Congress, which has just ended perpetuating Xi Jinping as Secretary General, has not only renewed the main leadership bodies of the party, but also of the Army. Its leadership is the Central Military Commission, chaired by Xi himself. Of its seven members, three have withdrawn in this conclave and their replacement reveals a clear interest in the objective that the Beijing regime most desires: Taiwan.
Having reached 68 years of age, the retirement age for senior positions but with which Xi makes an exception for himself and his closest collaborators, his vice president, General Xu Qiliang, has left the Commission; Defense Minister Wei Fenghe; and the chief of the General Staff, general Li Zuocheng.
General Zhang Youxia, an intimate of Xi, has entered as first vice president, and He Weidong as second, who has led the Eastern Command since 2019, from which the Army has the nearby island of Taiwan and the South China Sea within sight. At 65 years old, General He has extensive experience in Fujian province, the closest to Taiwan, and in the summer he directed the maneuvers that surrounded the island in retaliation for the visit of Nancy Pelosi, president of the House of Representatives of Taiwan. USA.
As military analysts point out, his figure and his knowledge on the ground would be decisive in the event of a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, which Xi Jinping advocates reunifying during this “new era” with which he has baptized his mandate. According to Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong expert quoted by the ‘South China Morning Post’ newspaper, the rise of He Weidong shows that the People’s Liberation Army is “strengthening combat preparations for a military fight against Taiwan.”
To this end, Xi Jinping has also placed a man of his highest confidence in the first vice-presidency of the Central Military Commission, General Zhang Youxia. As in his case to remain in power, he has even broken the retirement age rule because he is 72 years old. But Zhang is like his ‘blood brother’ because their parents, heroes of the communist revolution, served together under Mao during the civil war. While Zhang’s father was in command of the Northwest China Front, Xi’s father was his political commissar. Three decades later, both were purged during the ‘Cultural Revolution’, an ordeal that also marked their children for life.
Gen. Zhang Youxia, who has combat experience from fighting in the short-lived war against Vietnam in 1979, has taken on one of Xi’s main goals: modernizing the military and developing manned space and exploration missions. Moon. In order not to end up like the former Soviet Union, one of Xi Jinping’s obsessions, it has been proposed by 2027 to modernize the military strategy not only in weapons and technology, but also in training and doctrine.
Key figure for the conquest
Also with combat experience, General Liu Zhenli, 58, has entered the Military Commission and was decorated with a medal for his participation in the war against Vietnam. Considered a hero of the new generation, he has led the army’s ground forces and is emerging as another key figure in an eventual conquest of Taiwan.
Another member of the Military Commission who has not been replaced, Admiral Miao Hua, 66, also stands out for this mission. In addition to being born in the province of Fujian, in the middle of the Taiwan Strait, he has been the political commissar of this important military region, in which the second vice president of the Commission, He Weidong, also served.
Similarly, General Zhang Shengmin, responsible for the missile arsenal and member of the Disciplinary Inspection Commission, who has purged the Army during the years of Xi Jinping to eliminate the allies of his predecessor, Hu Jintao, continues. In fact, the entire military leadership of the previous president has been swept away by the anti-corruption campaign of the last decade.
Finally, General Li Shangfu, an aerospace engineer in charge of developing new weapons and sanctioned by the US in 2018 for buying fighter jets and missiles from Russia, enters the Military Commission. If he becomes defense minister, it will be necessary to see if the White House continues to maintain the veto over him or lifts it to have an interlocutor in the Chinese Army, something that would be essential if Xi Jinping sets out to conquer Taiwan.
#Jinping #remodels #military #leadership #Taiwan #spotlight