Speaker: Andrew Erickson, Professor of Strategy, China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College

Regarding China’s ability to seize Taiwan or achieve other top-level military objectives, does corruption matter? Since assuming power in 2012, paramount leader Xi Jinping has officially purged seven sitting and retired members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), including two Vice Chairmen. Beyond the CMC, many other military leaders have likewise fallen, including more than a dozen senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officials and defense industry executives over the past two years. The fight against “corruption” appears to be intensifying in 2025, with more shoes set to drop. Second-ranked CMC Vice Chairman General He Weidong has not appeared at two recent meetings at which his attendance would be expected. Despite PLA Navy (PLAN) Political Commissar Yuan Huazhi having an inherently high-profile public role, he has not been seen or heard from publicly since 7 September 2024. Many in the media and beyond speculate that these purges are significantly disrupting and limiting China’s military capabilities.

This presentation will examine politicized corruption-related removals within PLAN leadership specifically and argue in contrast that their imposition of costs regarding endemic behavior are fundamentally a speedbump at most, rather than a showstopper. Related removals are neither an indicator of prohibitive service incompetence nor a self-defeating constraint on operational capabilities. The PLAN may be playing high-stakes musical chairs with its leadership, but it has a deep enough talent pool to do so without prohibitive problems and enjoys substantive strengths in its own right. Regardless of corruption’s pervasive persistence, cutting-edge ships and weapons systems regularly enter service and PLAN capabilities to employ them operationally continue to improve. Corruption may impose inefficiencies, but does not curtail the PLAN’s rapid advances across the waterfront.

Andrew S. Erickson is a Professor of Strategy in the U.S. Naval War College (NWC)’s China Maritime Studies Institute, which he helped establish and has served as Research Director, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He testifies periodically before Congress and briefs leading officials, including the Secretary of Defense. Erickson helped to escort the Commander of China’s Navy on a visit to Harvard and subsequently to establish, and to lead the first iteration of, NWC’s first naval officer exchange program with China. He has received the Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal, NWC’s inaugural Civilian Faculty Research Excellence Award, and NBR’s inaugural Ellis Joffe Prize for PLA Studies. His research focuses on Indo-Pacific defense, international relations, technology, and resource issues.