1 Analyzing Xi and the CCP’s strategic objectives in encirclement drills around Taiwan
‘Justice Mission 2025’
The People’s Liberation Army conducted its most extensive ever military exercise — codenamed “Justice Mission 2025” — designed to encircle Taiwan between Dec. 29 to Dec. 30, 2025. Beijing claimed that the exercise, which was conducted with troops, vehicles, and weapons from the Eastern Theater Command, was a “resolute response” to deepening U.S.–Taiwan military cooperation and the U.S. approval of $11.1 billion in arms-sales packages for Taiwan earlier in the month.
Noteworthy points about the exercise include:
- Geographic scope and zone designation: “Justice Mission 2025” was the largest PLA military exercise conducted around Taiwan to date, as well as the one conducted closest to the island’s shores. The PLA initially announced five exercise zones before later expanding them to seven, fully encircling Taiwan’s main ports and strategic waterways. PLA aircraft and vessels pushed significantly closer to Taiwan’s coastline during the drills, exerting tangible pressure up to the edge of Taiwan’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters for the first time. Some missile impact points even landed precisely within Taiwan’s 24-nautical-mile contiguous zone. All in all, the military exercise appeared to be designed to create a strategic “close-range, total encirclement” squeeze on the island.
- Participating forces and weapons systems: The PLA demonstrated high-level joint operational capabilities. At the peak of the exercise, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense detected over 130 sorties of PLA aircraft (including advanced fighters like the J-20 and J-16) and dozens of naval vessels in a single day. Simultaneously, approximately 15 China Coast Guard vessels formed joint formations with the PLA Navy to conduct “law enforcement-style patrols,” simulating material blockades and shipboard inspections against Taiwan. The PLA also launched 27 long-range rockets and several conventional missiles into the waters surrounding Taiwan on Dec. 30.
- Tactical nature and strategic impact: The “Justice Mission 2025” exercise was characterized by high-intensity “real combat simulation,” focusing on tactics such as “joint blockade,” “seizure of sea and air control,” and “land and sea strikes.” Utilizing the aircraft carrier Shandong positioned off Taiwan’s eastern coast, the PLA simulated cutting off Taiwan’s links to the outside world, establishing a posture of “internal control and external repulsion.” The drills severely disrupted Taiwan’s air and maritime traffic, affecting over 100,000 international travelers and demonstrating Beijing’s ability to paralyze Taiwan’s economy at will through “gray zone” capabilities.
- Information warfare and psychological deterrence: The CCP undertook several propaganda measures during the exercise period, including:
- Rebranding: The PLA moved away from the “Joint Sword” code name of previous Taiwan missions, opting instead for “Justice Mission.”
- Official rhetoric: The PRC Taiwan Affairs Office and Party mouthpiece People’s Daily repeatedly emphasized that the drills were “just, necessary, and legitimate” actions targeting the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan worth tens of billions of dollars and so-called “Taiwan independence separatist forces.”
- International messaging: State mouthpiece Xinhua released multi-language commentaries explicitly warning “external forces” (alluding to the U.S. and Japan) that continued intervention would result in “broken heads and bloodshed” against the PLA’s “wall of steel.” These commentaries undoubtedly aim to convey the CCP’s uncompromising stance on Taiwan to the international community.
- Media blitz: Within an hour of the exercise launch, the PLA Eastern Theater Command released several sophisticated posters and propaganda videos.
- Political targeting: State media focused its criticism on Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party government, accusing it of engaging in “militarism at the expense of the people’s livelihood.”
International responses
United States
- President Donald Trump told reporters in Florida on Dec. 29 that he was not concerned about the situation with Taiwan. “I have a great relationship with President Xi, and he hasn’t told me anything about it. I don’t believe he’s going to be doing it,” Trump said, seemingly referring to PRC military action against Taiwan. Trump added, “Nothing worries me. Nothing. They’ve been doing naval exercises for 20 years in that area.”
- On Jan. 1, U.S. State Department principal deputy spokesperson Thomas Pigott said in a statement that “China’s military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan and others in the region increase tensions unnecessarily,” and that the U.S. urges Beijing to “exercise restraint, cease its military pressure against Taiwan, and instead engage in meaningful dialogue.” Pigott added that the U.S. “opposes unilateral changes to the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan
- The ROC military adhered to its “no provocation, no showing weakness” principle and deployed naval vessels to monitor the PLA drills. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration also dispatched its largest vessels to conduct one-to-one monitoring and broadcast warnings to PRC coast guard ships.
- Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement, “The Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive and militaristic provocations endanger regional security and stability, and have been condemned by democratic allies in the international community.”
- In his 2026 New Year Speech, Taiwan president William Lai Ching-te noted that the international community is watching whether the Taiwanese people “possess the resolve for self-defense” in the face of the PRC’s “rising expansionary ambitions.” He added, “As president, my position has always been clear: to staunchly defend national sovereignty, strengthen national defense, and enhance whole-of-society defense and resilience, and to comprehensively establish robust deterrence and democratic defense mechanisms.”
International concern
- Several countries issued statements of concern over the PLA’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills and called for issues related to Taiwan to be resolved through peaceful dialogue. Those countries include Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, and EU member states like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania.
Our take
1. The “Justice Mission 2025” allows Xi Jinping and the CCP to achieve several strategic goals:
i) Xi and the CCP could be “stress testing” the current Sino-U.S. détente and Washington’s commitment to its new national security strategy. In early November, the Trump administration issued a new national security document that prioritized America’s need to secure the Western Hemisphere and deter a conflict over Taiwan to preserve U.S. interests. Meanwhile, Xi and President Trump dialed down bilateral trade and other tensions after an in-person meeting in Busan in October 2025.
Xi was likely banking on his renewed personal relationship with Trump, improved diplomatic relations between the PRC and the U.S., and the Western holiday period (post-Christmas and New Year’s Day) to avoid straining tensions with the U.S. and its allies over the “Justice Mission 2025” drills. Trump’s dismissal of the PLA military exercise as something routine despite its unprecedented scale and his talking up of his relationship with Xi indicates that Xi’s gamble had paid off. Trump’s response also implicitly signals to U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific that America may not necessarily clash with the PRC in securing the First Island Chain.
Going forward, the PRC could exploit similar situations to normalize high-intensity military pressure (including practicing blockade or invasion maneuvers) on Taiwan, particularly if the pressure continues to not trigger significant pushback by the U.S. and the international community.
ii) Beijing could be signaling to Japan that it should back off its support for Taiwan. PRC-Japan ties worsened late last year following new Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks in early November 2025 that a PLA attack on Taiwan can be considered a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan; Japan is legally allowed to mobilize its Self-Defense Forces for collective self-defense in a “survival-threatening situation.”
By having exercise zones near Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni and Okinawa to the east of it, as well as deploying the Shandong carrier strike group off Taiwan’s eastern coast, Beijing is likely warning Tokyo that it has the capability of enforcing an effective blockade around Taiwan and bringing Japan’s Ryukyu Islands within range. Xi and the CCP could be hoping that the “Justice Mission 2025” would shake domestic consensus in Japan on aiding Taiwan and force the Takaichi administration to waver between economic interests and security.
iii) Xi and the CCP are looking to normalize coast guard enforcement to legalize the transformation of the Taiwan Strait into the PRC’s domestic waters. During the exercise, 15 PRC coast guard vessels entered Taiwan’s contiguous zone and even simulated boarding inspections of foreign commercial ships. This was likely intended to undermine international legal norms governing freedom of navigation on the high seas and bring the Taiwan Strait under the jurisdiction of the PRC coast guard. By applying its coast guard law to the strait, Beijing is engaging in “salami-slicing” legal warfare and creating a fait accompli where the Taiwan Strait is considered an “internal sea” of the PRC.
Should the international community, and especially the U.S., respond weakly to the CCP’s “law enforcement actions,” Beijing could in the future achieve de facto isolation or blockade of Taiwan using its paramilitary assets under the guise of undertaking “anti-smuggling” or “public health” operations in its “internal waters.” Such operations could eventually pave the way for the PRC to take Taiwan without declaring war.
iv) “Justice Mission 2025” has served as a dry run of sorts for a potential future attempt by the CCP to take Taiwan “hostage.” With the exercise zones covering Taiwan’s two major liquefied national gas terminals in Yong’an and Taichung, Beijing is hinting at implementing targeted strikes on Taiwan’s energy infrastructure and supply-chain blockades. A “pressure point blockade” of this sort would hit Taiwan hard given its limited energy reserve capacity, paralyzing Taiwan’s power supply and industrial production within days. Separately, the exercise disrupted hundreds of flights and caused the rerouting of commercial vessels, amplifying the potential impact of a “pressure point blockade” on Taiwan and the global semiconductor supply chain.
Xi and the CCP would be closely observing the subsequent response of the international community to its “hostage” dress rehearsal. If countries — particularly the major European powers whose representatives would be traveling to China in 2026 for talks on trade and other matters — remain silent on the Taiwan issue in the hopes of cutting favorable deals with Beijing, then Beijing would gain confidence in pursuing its strategy of using “economic leverage to force unification and blockades to compel negotiations” (以經促統、以封促談).
v) “Justice Mission 2025” could be part of the CCP’s attempt to coordinate internal and external pressure to cripple Taiwan’s government. Notably, opposition parties in Taiwan (the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party) passed a motion on Dec. 26, 2025 — just days before the military exercise — to impeach William Lai, sparking a constitutional crisis.
If the CCP was indeed coordinating with its proxies in Taiwan to put political pressure on Lai, then the launching of the drills around that period represents a classic combination of “cognitive warfare” and “political warfare.” The atmosphere of imminent danger created by the exercises provided ready-made material for opposition narratives accusing the Democratic Progressive Party of “relying on the U.S. to pursue independence and inviting war.” This, coupled with efforts by the opposition to block defense budgets and delay special procurement bills in the legislature, serves to undermine the governance capacity of the Lai administration, weaken Taiwan society’s ability to resist the CCP, and cultivate political forces more aligned with Beijing’s interests.
vi) Launching a large-scale military exercise facilitates Xi’s effort to reassert his authority within the military and neutralize the negative effects of sweeping purges. In 2025, Beijing officially purged nine full generals and appeared to remove many military members in the Central Committee (several military representatives were absent from the Fourth Plenum of the 20th Central Committee, and about 30 military delegates were removed from the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference earlier in the year).
At a moment when military morale is low and the integrity of the command system is under scrutiny, Xi appears to have used a grand combat simulation to boost morale, demonstrate his confidence in new commanders (Eastern Theater Command head Yang Zhibin was elevated to his position on Dec. 22), and display his absolute control over the military. The exercise and the propaganda surrounding it also send a message to internal and external audiences that the military purges have not destabilized the PLA or weakened its combat capability.
In sum, “Justice Mission 2025” was not a simple display of force by the PLA, but a move with multiple strategic objectives. Xi Jinping and the CCP appeared to have exploited America’s shifting national strategic priorities, Japan’s security anxieties, and fissures in Taiwan’s domestic politics to make a bid for reshaping the security status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Xi’s ideal scenario would see the CCP manufacture “political disintegration” in Taipei and gain “administrative control” over Taiwan, therefore achieving “peaceful reunification” without triggering a conflict in the strait.
2. Presently, Xi and the CCP have gained some tactical and narrative “successes” in executing “Justice Mission 2025.” However, the exercise could yet prove to be a counterproductive, double-edged sword in the long run:
i) While the drills are unlikely to disrupt reciprocal U.S.–China visits and the bilateral relationship in the short term, they cast a shadow over the long-term trajectory of relations between the two countries. Beijing did manage to exploit a window of opportunity, but it also gave Washington stronger justification to substantively deepen military integration with Taiwan (including more arms sales, enhanced data-link connectivity to step up military interoperability, etc.).
President Trump’s unpredictable nature remains a major variable in the stability of U.S.-China relations. Sustained efforts by Beijing to pressure Taiwan militarily and in other areas, as well as incessant attempts to persuade Trump to denounce “Taiwan independence,” could end up backfiring should Trump believe that he is looking “weak” on China. A Trump pivot could see the U.S. adopt a tougher posture against the PRC, including raising tariffs, applying economic sanctions, and strengthening ties with Taiwan.
ii) The demonstration of the PRC’s imminent threat to Japan via “Justice Mission 2025” could prompt Tokyo to fast-track defense spending (including bringing forward funding in its FY2026 budget for the construction of civilian shelters and long-range missile bases) and strengthen security ties with Taiwan. Beijing would be dealt a major strategic setback if its drills accelerate Japan’s militarization and solidifies the Japanese public’s perception that their national security is inseparable from Taiwan’s.
iii) Instead of politically destabilizing Taiwan, Beijing’s military pressure could instead end up strengthening Lai Ching-te’s hand. For instance, Lai can now point to “Justice Mission 2025” to justify increasing Taiwan’s defense spending and rally the Taiwanese public behind himself and the DPP. Opposition parties in Taiwan also run the risk of being perceived as Beijing’s stooges if they continue taking actions that are viewed as undermining Taiwan’s security.
The PLA’s exercise also afforded Taiwan to counter Beijing’s narrative of military superiority in the Taiwan Strait. For instance, Taiwan’s defense ministry released images at a press conference on Dec. 30 showing a PLA J-16 fighter jet being tracked by a Taiwanese F-16V Block 20 jet using Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod AN/AAQ-33 technology. The monitoring of a PLA jet from over 100 kilometers possibly without the aircraft being aware that it was under surveillance demonstrates that Taiwan also possesses superior military technology, challenging the CCP’s cognitive warfare and intimidation tactics, as well as diluting defeatist sentiments among the public.
iv) Beijing cannot undertake multiple exercises similar or greater in scale to “Justice Mission 2025” without placing significant strain on the Chinese economy. Launching an aircraft carrier, hundreds of sorties, and long-range missile strikes is exorbitantly expensive. At a time of economic malaise and heavy local government debt at the end of 2025, massive spending to put on a military “show” could exacerbate tensions between the PRC’s military ambitions and the need for domestic economic stimulus.
Also, it remains to be seen whether the new commanders promoted after sweeping purges have genuine combat confidence. It is also unclear whether mechanical failures or operational errors — including those potentially linked to corruption — occurred during the exercises. Such uncertainties could continue to cast doubt in Xi Jinping’s mind about the PLA’s ability to prevail against the U.S., Japan, and other countries in actual combat in an invasion or blockade of Taiwan.
2 Politburo’s unusual focus on anti-corruption work in Dec 2025 foreshadows high-level purges in 2026 and beyond
Politburo focuses on anti-corruption work in Dec 2025
Dec. 8
The CCP Politburo convened a meeting to analyze and study economic work for 2026 and to review the “Regulations of the Chinese Communist Party on Leading the Comprehensive Law-based Governance of the Country” (中國共產黨領導全面依法治國工作條例). CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the meeting.
Dec. 10 – Dec. 11
The Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing. Members of the Politburo Standing Committee attended the meeting. In an important speech, Xi Jinping summarized the PRC’s economic work in 2025, analyzed the current economic situation, and set out plans for economic work in 2026.
Dec. 25
The Politburo convened a meeting to hear a work report from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission. The meeting also researched and deployed tasks for Party conduct, clean governance, and anti-corruption work in 2026. Xi Jinping presided over the meeting.
The meeting approved holding the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection from Jan. 12 to Jan. 14 in 2026. State media also reported that Xi had already chaired a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee to hear reports on the CCDI–National Supervisory Commission’s work in 2025 and made preparations for the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CCDI prior to this Dec. 25 Politburo meeting.
Dec. 25 to Dec. 26
The Politburo held a “democratic life” meeting (a session for self-criticism and internal review). Xi Jinping presided over the meeting and delivered an important speech.
State media said that the meeting first reviewed reports on the implementation of the Central Committee’s Eight-point Regulation in 2025 and the progress made during the year in curbing formalism and reducing burdens at the grassroots level. Subsequently, each member of the Politburo gave a speech where they conducted self-examination and “Party nature analysis” of their thinking and work, as well as carried out criticism and self-criticism.
The statements by Politburo members focused on five key areas:
- Taking the lead in strengthening political loyalty and enhancing political capability.
- Taking the lead in consolidating foundations and strengthening Party nature.
- Taking the lead in maintaining reverence for the people, the organization, and Party discipline and laws.
- Taking the lead in entrepreneurship and decisive action.
- Taking the lead in resolutely shouldering the responsibility for Party governance.
Xi provided individual feedback and requirements for each Politburo member’s self-examination remarks before summarizing the “democratic life” session:
- Xi said that the Party-wide Eight-Point Regulation education campaign in 2025 had tackled prominent issues head-on and achieved significant new results. He urged Politburo members to serve as “benchmarks” for Party nature and conduct.
- Xi stressed that leading cadres, especially high-ranking ones, must remain clear-headed and strictly self-disciplined. They must “keep their true colors,” stay within their roles, proceed with caution and vigilance, and maintain humility and prudence.
- Xi said that leading cadres must properly manage those around them and matters close to them, and truly uphold integrity and clean governance.
Our take
The various Politburo meetings held in December 2025 offer various signs and clues that signal ongoing high-level purges in the CCP and their continuation in the new year.
1. The Xi leadership’s convention of a Politburo meeting dedicated solely to anti-corruption on Dec. 25 marks a departure from past practice. When the Politburo meets in early December to discuss the current and upcoming year’s economic work, it typically also goes over the CCDI and NSC’s annual anti-corruption progress report to plan the anti-corruption agenda for the following year. The Politburo, however, has never held a dedicated meeting on anti-corruption in December. More intriguingly, the General Offices of the CCDI and the NSC issued guidelines for “evidence in investigating new and hidden forms of corruption” (調查新型腐敗和隱性腐敗問題證據指引) just a day prior (Dec. 24) to the Politburo meeting on anti-corruption in December. In identifying emerging and concealed forms of corruption that have appeared in recent years, the document analyzes 20 specific types of “hidden corruption” and aligns investigative evidence standards with criminal trial requirements.
We believe that the Xi leadership’s unusual focus on anti-corruption matters in December 2025 foreshadows efforts to probe and purge senior officials or cadres in 2026 and the lead up to the 21st Party Congress in 2027. Notably, the guidelines on investigating “new and hidden forms of corruption” are clearly oriented towards senior officials or cadres who are known to use sophisticated methods to conceal their assets:
- Shadow ownership: Senior officials or cadres typically do not hold their assets directly but through relatives or “white gloves” (bagmen). For instance, Tomorrow Group’s Xiao Jianhua is widely believed to be a “white glove” for members of the Jiang Zemin faction and other Party princelings. Such “white gloves” often hold equity on behalf of senior officials or transfer benefits through multiple layers of offshore shell companies.
- Deferred rent-seeking arrangements: While in office, senior officials or cadres could have abused their position to benefit companies with the understanding that they will be compensated later via “consulting fees,” “bespoke high salaries,” or equity payouts after retirement.
- Financial obfuscation: Senior officials or cadres could have their assets transferred out of the mainland via offshore companies, complex financial derivatives, or cryptocurrencies to make ownership and transaction trails untraceable.
The Xi leadership had previously made anti-corruption inroads that would help lay the groundwork for Beijing to move against high-ranking officials or cadres. For one, the Xi leadership’s anti-corruption efforts in the financial sector since 2017 have led to the downfall of businessmen who are likely to have powerful backers in the “red aristocracy,” including the aforementioned Xiao Jianhua, Anbang’s Wu Xiaohui, and China Evergrande’s Hui Ka Yan (Xu Jiayin). The investigation of those individuals would have handed the Xi leadership invaluable “ammunition” to use against troublesome but influential political foes (for example, Zeng Qinghong, the de facto head of the Jiang faction whose clan is involved in the financial sector and who personally has sway over the intelligence apparatus, remains at large).
The Xi leadership has also made arrangements that would facilitate efforts by Beijing to target the assets of senior officials or cadres in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has long been a preferred destination for capital flight and asset concealment by CCP elites. The 2020 Hong Kong National Security Law — ostensibly aimed at suppressing democratic movements and potential “color revolutions” — allows the Beijing authorities to bypass Hong Kong’s legal framework in searching, freezing, and seizing the assets of high-ranking officials or cadres under the pretext of safeguarding “national security.” Perhaps in recognition of this, Boyu Capital — controlled by Jiang Zemin’s grandson, Alvin Jiang Zhicheng — relocated from Hong Kong to Singapore before the enactment of the National Security Law.
Additionally, the mutual recognition and enforcement of civil and commercial judgments between mainland China and Hong Kong courts (formally effective Jan. 29, 2024) represents a key technical step in recovering assets that senior officials or cadres could have moved abroad. The CCP authorities have already demonstrated their willingness to use legal processes to trace and recover assets of those it has targeted, with the Hong Kong High Court approving Evergrande’s liquidators to pursue assets belonging to the family of Hui Ka Yan in jurisdictions such as Singapore and Canada. Going forward, the Xi leadership could also employ Big Data analysis to correlate “power, assets, and networks,” penetrating multilayered ownership structures to identify the ultimate beneficial owners behind the scenes before moving against seemingly “untouchable” senior officials or cadres.
Aside from tightening Party discipline and taking down disloyalists, the Xi leadership has more practical reasons for targeting “new and hidden” forms of corruption at this time. The CCP authorities are likely to recover substantial assets in pursuing corrupt senior officials or cadres, and the recovery of vast sums of offshore and hidden wealth can help replenish the severe fiscal deficit currently facing the regime. Beijing could also be preempting efforts and potential efforts by the U.S. government to investigate the wealth of senior CCP leaders; in March 2025, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on the wealth and corrupt activities of CCP leadership, while Congress introduced the PICTURES Act demanding the disclosure of the overseas assets of top CCP officials, including Xi Jinping, in June 2025. By jumping out ahead and labeling the assets of senior officials or cadres as “illicit corruption proceeds,” the CCP authorities will be able to recover them under international legal frameworks rather than allow them to be frozen and seized by foreign governments.
2. The Politburo’s focus on anti-corruption work in December was not the only anomaly. Ma Xingrui, a Politburo member and former Party Secretary of Xinjiang, was noticeably missing from the various Politburo meetings that month.
i) The first credible sign that Ma Xingrui could be in political trouble was his absence from the Politburo’s collective study session on Nov. 28. Another tentative sign followed when CCTV’s primetime program Xinwen Lianbo reported on the Dec. 8 Politburo meeting by releasing just text but without any footage of the Politburo members in session; this suggested that there could have been some unusual developments involving personnel that the CCP authorities did not want to call public attention to. When CCTV released footage of other Politburo meetings in December 2025, Ma was nowhere to be seen.
Ma Xingrui’s absence from the Politburo’s “democratic life” meeting from Dec. 25 to Dec. 26 is the most tangible sign that he is likely in some sort of trouble. Unlike routine administrative meetings, this meeting is a high-stakes ritual of “political loyalty.” By convention, all Politburo members must attend in person — barring those with duties at major foreign state visits or suffering from critical illnesses — to perform “criticism and self-criticism” before the top leader and publicly affirm their loyalty. Historically, Politburo members who miss “democratic life” meetings without an official explanation have usually been “subjected to measures” (採取措施) or placed under internal investigation and isolated. Ma’s absence is therefore tantamount to a political “death sentence,” and suggests that he has lost even the qualification to repent before the Party.
ii) In the CCP, Politburo members are rarely purged for simple bribery. Rather, their downfall is usually triggered by “political issues.” While past fallen figures like Bo Xilai, Sun Zhengcai, Chen Xitong, or Chen Liangyu were purged for challenging the supreme authority or succession arrangements Ma Xingrui — a career technocrat — lacks the political power or base for a coup.
There are several plausible reasons why Ma Xingrui could be investigated:
- Ma could have been found guilty of having undermined Xi Jinping’s “national rejuvenation blueprint” — specifically the “centennial military building goal” for building a “strong military” by 2027 — with his potential involvement in collective corruption within the “defense industrial” and “aerospace” systems. During the Jiang-Hu era, Ma worked in the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. At those jobs, Ma could have participated in defense industry and military procurement corruption. During the Jiang-Hu era when Ma was working at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, corruption in the PLA and the defense industry was rampant. Military and defense industry leaders at the time likely believed that war between the U.S. and China was highly improbable during the “golden” era of bilateral relations in the decade after the PRC’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Therefore, they engaged in various forms of deception — exaggerating the research, development, deployment, and procurement of weaponry — to siphon off vast sums of military funding. Those illicit activities would later be exposed by insiders to overseas Chinese media outlets, and the actual scale of the corruption during that period could have become clearer to the Xi leadership following the 2023 PLA Rocket Force scandal that led to the downfall of Li Shangfu, the former head of the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department and defense minister at the time. However, unless Ma was personally involved in very severe corruption back in the day — notably corruption that directly and significantly affected Xi Jinping’s present policy objectives — it is peculiar for the Xi leadership to retroactively purge Ma over what he did during the Jiang-Hu era.
- Ma could have been purged for engaging in serious corruption when he was serving in the governments of Guangdong and Xinjiang. But unless “political issues” (i.e. forming factions, acting disloyally towards Xi, etc.) are involved, the Xi leadership cannot adequately justify the removal of Ma or any other Politburo member solely on corruption and disciplinary grounds (the vast majority of CCP officials are involved in corruption to varying degrees). Moreover, publicly available information thus far reveals no clear indication that the development of Guangdong or Xinjiang were severely hindered when Ma was serving in those governments, nor were there any serious security risks in either local administration during Ma’s tenure.
- Ma could be investigated for “forming cliques and factions,” or other serious displays of disloyalty to Party “core” leader Xi. However, there is currently no evidence in publicly available information that points to Ma’s involvement in factional politics or displays of disloyalty.
iii) Regardless of the reason, an investigation into Ma Xingrui would indicate that the first cracks are showing in Xi Jinping’s attempt at “technocratic governance,” as well as his personnel appointment strategy of placing “technocrats” in key positions in lieu of officials with clear factional backgrounds. When navigating factional politics over the past decade, Xi appeared to have followed several “guidelines” in personnel selection:
- Promoted officials he personally knew or who had served under him.
- Elevated officials marginalized during the Jiang Zemin era or who were perceived to be at odds with the Jiang faction.
- Accepted recommendations from Hu Jintao.
- Rapidly promoted younger officers within the military or senior officers with poor career progression during the Jiang-Hu era.
- Cultivated “technocrats” who are perceived as having weaker or no factional ties to the Jiang faction.
At the 20th Party Congress, Xi promoted six officials with technocratic backgrounds to high office, including:
- Ma Xingrui (aerospace engineering background; former aerospace system leader).
- Yuan Jiajun (aerospace engineering background; representative of the “aerospace faction”).
- Zhang Guoqing (engineering background).
- Li Ganjie (nuclear engineering and safety background).
- Yin Li (public health and medical background).
- Chen Jining (PhD in environmental engineering and systems analysis)
iv) There is a possibility that Ma Xingrui is not actually guilty of heinous crimes, but was a victim or “sacrificial lamb” in factional struggle or bureaucratism. The more Xi Jinping emphasizes power centralization, the Party’s absolute leadership, and the need for officials to be loyal to him, the easier it becomes for anti-corruption bureaucrats or disloyal domestic intelligence officials to find corruption and disloyalty in cases where they are insignificant or nonexistent. A vicious cycle emerges when Xi grows more paranoid with each “loyalist” he has to purge, which could lead to more faction-building and falsification in the officialdom. Ultimately, the pace of anti-corruption work will always lag behind the pace of institutional decay in the CCP regime.
3. The various anomalies with and at the Politburo meetings in December 2025 suggest that significant political purges are inbound in 2026 and in the lead-up to the 21st Party Congress. Beijing’s focus on anti-corruption matters could conceivably take precedence over efforts to stabilize and revive China’s economy. Anti-corruption purges, however, will not fundamentally resolve Xi Jinping’s political and governance problems, and could even exacerbate the various crises plaguing the CCP regime.
