American Thought Leaders - How Xi Jinping Broke All the CCP’s Rules | Heng He

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

“We are witnessing the turning point of the Chinese Communist Party rule. … The chain of command in the military is totally broken,” says veteran China analyst and Epoch Times columnist Heng He.On Jan. 24, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced that two top military generals, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, were under investigation for “serious disciplinary and legal violations.” This comes on the heels of a series of purges of Chinese military leaders.Of the seven original members of China’s Central Military Commission, five have now effectively been purged or removed. Only two remain. And one of those two is Xi Jinping himself.In my deep-dive interview with He, he lays out why he’s convinced the latest purges are the signs of something historic happening in China.“They have open rules, and they have hidden rules. But what Xi Jinping did was against every single rule,” He says.What’s really going on behind the scenes now? And what does this turmoil mean for the Chinese Communist Party’s plans to invade Taiwan? What are the policy implications for the United States?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

There's been an unprecedented purge of top Chinese military leaders, including most recently top general Zhang Yu Sha, a longtime ally of Xi Jinping. This never happened in history of the communist rule. Of the seven members of China's central military commission, five have effectively been purged or removed, only to remain. One of them is Xi Jinping himself. Even during the cultural revolution, Mao Zedong didn't really purge it.

the high-ranked officials in the military. What's really going on behind the scenes? And what does this turmoil mean for the Chinese Communist Party's plans to invade Taiwan? In this episode, I'm sitting down with veteran China analyst Hung He, a longtime columnist with the Epoch Times, to unpack all of this. Soviet Union collapsed is not because they don't have strong military, it's because the system collapsed. Now, Xi Jinping face the same situation.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yan Yekielik. Heng Ha, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Yeah, the pleasure is mine. Thanks for having me. So there is something absolutely astonishing happening among the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party with profound implications for the country, perhaps for the world. What's something? going on? Yeah, I think of what happened last week, it's very rare to find such thing. So I would say we are witnessed the turning point of the Chinese Communist Party rule. There's

three, you know, at most three events can be compared in Chinese Communist Party history after they took over the China. One is in 1960. Two, you know, when the great leap forward failed and tens of millions people died, and then there's a power switch. And the Liu Sao Qi, the second hand of Mao Zedong, who took over the power and but kept Maudeau in a symbolic figure. That's in 1962. And the second event can be compared is during the Congress.

Cultural Revolution, Ling Biao, the second hand of Mao Zedong, was purged and escaped to Mongolia and died there. That was, I would say, it's the turning point of Mozart's legacy. From that day, Mausadun's legacy is almost gone. The Chinese people, do think about what is real, nature of cultural evolution and that, you know, leads to the end of the cultural revolution. And the third one is, I think, is the end of cultural revolution. They purged a gang of four. The gang of four is Malthodon's wife and three others promoted by Mothodon's Cultural Revolution. So it's kind of like a gang of cultural evolution.

They arrested the four of them and they, they, that marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. So I think the fourth one is the purge of Zhao Ziyang in 1989. During the Tiananmen suppress massacre, they got rid of the head of the Communist Party, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. I think this event can deserve to compare with those are big events. It's like a once a decades.

So what exactly happened? I mean, we're seeing, you know, basically a profound shift in the power structure. This is something we talked a while ago, perhaps a year ago, about big shifts within the Communist Party, big power changes. But here we see another shift. And so just kind of lay out exactly what happened for me just shortly and then we'll kind of dig into it a little bit. Yeah, basically last time we talked about the power switch is basically somebody in the party top leadership or the retired old leaders work with the military. Pretty much took over the power from Xi Jinping, especially in the military and some economic field. not totally. It's a little similar to in 1962, you know, New South Chi took some of the power from Mao Zodong and this time it was the probably

retired, you know, all the leaders with this Zhang Yiu Xia who was perched at this time, you know, took over the part of the power, not full of power. And this time, I think, After some preparation, Xi Jinping fought back, I think, and, you know, purged this head of the military. Basically, it's like the power switch back. I would say, this is what happened. So now, okay, let's get the dimensions of this exactly. Now you're talking about the vice chairman, Zhang Yu Shah.

You're saying he was the head of basically the military, and now this is Xi Jinping purging. This is Xi Jinping reasserting power. Yes, and I believe, because Xi Jinping is not military person. So the head of the military was this person, you know, purged Zhang Yasha. And I'm pretty sure I can consider what Xi Jinping did is a coup. Okay. explain that to me because, you know, coup is a very strong word and there's, you know, been kind of accusations of coups over the years happening with different leaders. But why would you, why does

this reach the level of being called a coup? We can see from the public information and Xi Jinping purged Zhang Yohsi is not followed a procedure. It's a, it's, it's a, it's, it's, It's totally against CCP's rules and even hidden rules. You know, they have open rules and they have hidden rules. But what Xi Jinping did was against every single rule, even the, you know, hidden rule. For example, when they announce the purge, this statement is the CCP central, you know, CCP Central didn't say Central what? CCP Central, you know, like investigate this person.

Actually, two generals in the military is top one and the top two, top one and the second one. So perjured two, I would say the top leader of the military. Usually they will say who perjured them, you know, the power, where the power come from. And they didn't say, it's a, it's a, CCP Central. Well, CCP Central is a very, you know, confused name. Usually it would mean CCP Central Committee or CCP Central Committee political bureau or the, you know,

standing committee of the political Bureau. So three levels. They all can be called the CCP Central, but the CCP Central is very abnormal. You cannot say that. You have to have a meeting, you know, procedure, have a meeting. If you don't have the meeting, you don't have the decision, that's illegal. So if it's illegal, that's a coup. And this is one reason. Another reason is, you know, the chairman of vice-stead. chairman of a CCP Central military commission, you know, should be decided by the CCP Central Committee. And the Central Committee didn't have a meeting, so they didn't authorize the purge. You know, they must authorize the promotion and the purge. But there's no such a procedure.

And second is in the Central Military Commission, CMC, you know, they have to have a meeting to decide who is in what position. And they also need to make the decision to purge somebody inside the military commission. The problem is they already purge the three of the member of the military commission. So only four left, and this time four were purged. That means if they have a meeting to vote, and then it should be two to two, right? So two agreed to purge another two. That was impossible. None of the procedure written in the rules was carried out.

That's why I said this is a coup. It's very illegal. I mean, this is absolutely fascinating, right? Because this is in every system, right, like say in the mafia, right, there's certain rules that have to be followed, right? And when you don't typically break those, when people break them, they get in big, they get in huge trouble. Why? Because otherwise you have utter chaos, right? So this is, you're saying that these core rules, the core basics of what's been happening,

in the Chinese Communist Party of how it's worked in the upper echelons have been completely compromised now. And she just kind of went in and said, here's how it's going to be. Yeah, you remember several months ago, they confirmed nine top military leaders were purged, right? But now two top leaders were purged. So this will be the big issue. I think the first thing is the chain of commander in the military is totally broken. It's totally broken. It's not like partially or half.

This never happened in history of the communist rule, even during the starting time, you know, in Soviet Union. Of course, they perjured a lot of military personnel officials. But I think in the top leader, five of the top military leaders only purged three, you know, two left. But now they have seven in the Central Military Commission and only two left, five purged. So this is like more serious than in starting time. I would say that would the big influence. of the whole Chinese Communist rule because, you know, it's not in the military.

The purges also happened in the, you know, civilian in the government system, even though it's not so dramatic. And everybody will think this is not right. Why? Because usually the rule will tell people who is in charge and what to do. In China, you have to follow the right person. If you follow the wrong person in the government system or in the bureaucracy, then you will be purged. Right. But now people don't know what is the right person to follow. Because even if you follow Xi Jinping, you still will be purged.

So the hidden rule is broken. I think that will be the end of the, the, the, the whole. whole system. Because the system need to put people together, you know, the official together. You should make, you know, they're able to make the system work. But now nobody knows who to trust and who is the way you should follow. That's a big problem. And also, ching off commander of the military has been broken. That means the military cannot fight. Another thing is Chinese military is different from the rest of the world. They belong to the party, not belong to the people or the state or the government or any state.

So they belong to the party. It's a party ruled military. So the military designed the way is totally different. It designed to protect the CCP's rule, protect the regime, not five, five, five, you fight overseas wars. So the military basically designed that way. They don't have even the soldiers and the guns has no bullet in it because they are afraid that they will turn the gun to the wrong side,

you know, turn back the their guns. So that's the design. But, you know, people are always afraid that Xi Jinping would take over Taiwan. But once they decided to have a foreign war against Taiwan, they have to put the generals in full control. Xi Jinping cannot fight himself, right? He has to give the power, you know, the commander, to the military leaders, you know. That means the military has the power to turn the, you know, gone backwards. Again. For now it's impossible.

Against him. But, you know, since everybody is afraid of their position and their safety, even in the military, That's never happened before because even during the cultural revolution, Malthamon didn't really purge the high-ranked officials in the military. You know, military is relatively stable, but now military is in a mess. I mean, this is, it's an astonishing development, right? And I mean, as you said, right, we've got five out of seven of the, you know, top military leadership gone. And, you know, obviously it had to do with the fact that she felt threatened. He was

consolidating his power from what I understand you're saying. But at the moment, I mean, there's, there is all these questions about what the strength of the Chinese military is, right? It's been, they've been building a huge navy. They've been building in space. They've been expanding their nuclear capabilities dramatically. I mean, way beyond it. anything that's official from what we know, you know, this is a potent military force in the world, right? And you're saying it's without leadership right now. I mean, this sounds concerning. Well, maybe it's good news for the world, not good news for Xi Jinping. Because Xi Jinping is different. I think his conflict with the military part of the reason is Xi Jinping want to be a great leader,

you know, can be the same as Mao Zedong and the Deng Xiaoping. As we talked the last time, you know, he wants to be, he said, Mozart is the one to make China stand up. And, you know, Deng Xiaoping makes China rich, and he will make China strong. You know, but that strong has no standard. You cannot say this is strong, right? So he has to do something to make his claim convincing. Taiwan is the, I think it's the best target for him.

But the military has, the whole military has different idea. Two major points. One is the military is totally corrupted. I'm not saying Zhang Yu Xia is not corrupted. It's corrupted. But the reason to purge him is not corruption. reason to put him is one is Zhang Yasha helped you know the other others to you know took some of the power from him another reason is Zang Wai Chai has totally

different idea about taking over Taiwan. I think these two military leaders were purged they were the only one who had a real battle you know field battle experience. Others doesn't have one. And they are very professional, you know, those two purgeed. Zhang Yuxha and Liu Zheng Li. They are very professional. Even American military recognize, you know,

they are very good professional military person, and they are very good at communication, communicate with Americans. Maybe that's one of the reason to purging them. So they have different idea. They thought this is a bad idea because the Chinese military is not ready to fight the war in the Taiwan Strait. So I think that means Xi Jinping's ambition is conflict with the professional opinion about the war. I think that's another reason, you know, the Xi Jinping

cannot get along with those two perjured military personnel. You know, I want to jump into that in a moment where, you know, basically this idea that, you know, in a way this could be creating a more dangerous situation because, you know, she who doesn't, I mean, I'll get you to qualify this for me, but from what I understand she has no military experience and now is kind of, you know, I guess through this coup as you describe it as kind of trying to take control of the military, and he may make decisions that his professional leadership would never have made because of the cost perhaps. Before we jump into that, I just have one quick question. So you don't think that

Zhang Yu Shah actually did something with nuclear secrets and the Americans? No, no, not at all. The Wall Street Journal published an article, get some internal source. But you have to know that in the PLA, daily is the military newspaper, official newspaper. They accused Zhang Yohia, like five crimes. And the five crimes, the most serious one is broken the system of the CMC Central Military Commission's chairman's sole responsibility. responsibility. That means the chairman, that means Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping is in full charge of the military. Nobody else should have the power, share the power. So

that means broken the rule means challenge Xi Jinping's authority in the military. That's a political crime. It's not, you know, corruption, you know, acquisition. The official, this is a half official statement, has nothing to do with the nuclear secret, nothing to do with corruption. It's all political. It's fully power struggle. And in the last two days, there was a lot of Western media ask a question in the military press conference. And the answer is no, you know, they denied any acquisition about the nuclear secret. So I think somebody on Schismihin side tried to make the coup look illegal, you know, so they release intentionally to Western media. And I don't think Western media can create this story,

you know, the story is from inside. But the leaking has the purpose. The purpose is frame Zhang Yiu-cha, you know, made him look like a traitor. That's why. But officially, they won't be able to prove that. So they don't do it officially, but do it, you know, by leaking the information to Western media. So you think they're basically just using the Western media

to create narratives? Yeah, but not official narrative. Because there's no way Zhang Yen Xia would leak the nuclear secret to the United States. The reason is he is already in the top position. There's no way American can offer a better position, right? And for the money side, as long as he is willing to take the money, he must be already rich. and sometimes rich in a small country, very rich.

American cannot bribe him. You cannot pay more than he already have. If he is not so corrupted, that means he doesn't really need money, then you cannot buy him. So there's no reason. By the way, he is not a nuclear expert. I don't think he knows a lot of citizens.

You know, China's nuclear weapon secret. I don't think so. In his position, he doesn't need to know the detail. If you don't know the detail, then you don't have the secret. I mean, that's absolutely fascinating. Let's just jump back to this idea that Xi Jinping may have consolidated his actual power over the military. He has this interest, you're saying, in Taiwan as a way to show that he has made China China strong. His generals, you've been saying, I've been saying, wait a sec, this isn't going to go well for us, so let's hold off.

Does this mean that, you know, we might have created a more dangerous situation because of his ambition? It could be, but, you know, since the military is not willing to fight, that's a... How do you know that? So it will be, there's no wing issue. for Xi Jinping. But of course, it's more dangerous. You know the whole story from the beginning, you know, like in 2003, started with purging the rocket army, right? And the military equipment and the development department. That's Zhang Yu Xia's territory. So purge those is because Xi Jinping want to take over Taiwan.

And he wants to, the military, you know, designed, he designed in 2015, you know, to switch the military from the inside to the outside fight. But looks like it's failed, you know, because the corruption, the military cannot fulfill his needs. That's why he started to purge. He purged Zhang Yousha's territory. That's why Zhang Yohsiah tried to fight back. And last year, all the military top leaders purged were all belongs to the Xi Jinping faction. So there's another reason we believe that the power switch last year happened.

And now Xi Jinping took over the power. and got rid of only two reasonable military top leaders. Another one left, we said two left in the military central committee. Xi Jinping is the one. Another one was promoted last October, in the last year, October. It's Zhang Senming. But Zhang Sen Ming is as a political leader. of the military. He doesn't know anything about the military. It doesn't know anything about, you know,

war. So he was a commissar person, you know, people call the commissar person. And that means now amateur replaced the professional. So it's more dangerous. I believe it's more dangerous. But also the military power, you know, the power for the war is much, much weak than before. So they have no way to win a war. The control the conflict is less possible. With the professional, they can control the conflict. But without the professionals, now it's amateurs in charge. There will be more chance to have uncontrolled the conflict.

But not necessarily, they have a strong military power to win the war. No, I don't think so. You're saying that the military power is dramatically reduced because of the lack of professional leadership. What about overall for she? So she has consolidated power, he's had this coup as you've described it. What does this kind of mean for the CCP's power on the external stage, on the world stage? So far, they claim, you know, the military claim, you know, the military claim that the communication with the foreign militaries will be continued and won't stop. That was one way, you know, they tried to make things like nothing happened or nothing

seriously happened. But actually, there will be a lot of changes in CCP's, you know, the international policies. But I don't think they were, because, you know, CCP doesn't really have a good strategy, international global strategy. Basically, their strategy is against the United States, you know, even since 1949 when CCP took over China, and their strategy is against the United States. Because CCP has the basic theory of Marxism, communism, and their Their theory is overtaken the whole world. They have never changed.

You know, the reform and the openness is just one exception, you know, during Deng Xiaoping time. And I think Xi Jinping is back to the CCP basic ideology, and they won't change. So I don't think in the international level, I would see, I don't expect to see many changes, I know. That's my thought. I know that you, it's very difficult to predict, right, what will happen.

But you know, this is a profound shift and you say there's a kind of a more chaotic situation and there's some kind of, I mean, would it be fair to say there's sort of an overall reduction in power for the system? Yeah, the thing is, actually we can predict some of the future in CCP's rule because, you know, for the past one or several years, there was saying that the officials in the government, in the party system, in the government had a trend to Teng Pinh as a lay down, you know, don't do anything, because they don't know what to do as a right, can be promoted or keep their

position or even keep them safe. They don't know what to do. So doing nothing is the safest choice they have. So there's a very popular trend that the officials in the government system, you know, lay down doing nothing. Now this extended to the military now. So it means Xi Jinping has the superpower, you know, all the power came to himself. But the whole bureaucracy becomes less power and less efficiency. And everybody knows Xi Jinping, the sole dictator, you know, cannot do everything, right? You have to depend on the system. Now the system was destroyed by the by Xi Jinping. And that was will be the big problem.

You know, Soviet Union collapse. It's not because they don't have strong military, it because the system collapsed. Now, Xi Jinping faced the same situation. He wants to have a full power, but, you know, in the same time, you know, by doing, you know, destroying the system. Of course, I think this is, maybe it's not a bad thing.

Because, you know, the Chinese Communist Party is the one who create all the trouble in the world or in China. And, you know, Xi Jinping is in another way to destroy the party, destroy the system. It's a little bit like Mao Zedong in the early stage of the cultural revolution, you know, destroy the whole system he built. But of course, in several months, know, in early 1967, Mozart rebuilt the system.

That's his system. But Xi Jinping, I don't think he had a chance or the ability to rebuild anything he destroyed. Hmm. Well, so it's very interesting the analogy now to the Soviet Union because there were kind of a few things happening. One was, like you said, right, the sort of the the system. of power sharing and kind of being able to affect policy, kind of make things happen, was kind of crumbled internally, right? The other side was, you know, the economic difficulty. I mean, this is

part of the, you know, American plan was to kind of, you know, outspend and get them to basically, you know, kind of economically hurt themselves. And the CCP is indeed in a very difficult economic situation right now, you know, especially. with these tariff regimes that are coming from the U.S. Can you get you to comment on that a little bit? I think the basic problem is inside China. Because even if there's no help of the United States, if they have a policy, they have the biggest market in the world.

So when the United States to do some thing like a tariff, something like that, it should be damaged, totally destroys China's economy. The problem is when Chinese Communist Party during Deng Xiaoping time to start the free market or some reform, it was crippled reform. It has only economic reform without the political system reform. So you cannot like everything is lessen. You have to follow the party. You have to listen to the body.

You have to have a socialist planned economy. And the same time, you have full free market. That's impossible. So that's why the conflict is already there. But with the Western investment, you know, lots of money pouring in, that problem is not so obviously. It was covered, you know, by the, Western investment. But the problem is still there.

You know, after years of accumulation, or the problem becomes worse than worse. Of course, CCP is afraid of the economy, freedom, you know, will have those, you know, who get rich from the free market and demand the more political power, you know, share political power. So that's why, you know, you know, Xi Jinping is the resolution. When Xi Jinping took over the power, they tried to promote the state economy, you know, plan the economy and suppress the private

section of the economy. And that's what Xi Jinping, you know, this is the Communist Party's reaction to the, you know, free market. That's, I think the problem is there. Deng Xiaoping knew that, but he doesn't want to destroy the Communist Party. So that's why he said, we leave the problem to the next generation. So now it's the next generation's problem.

That's the current generation. Well, so what would be your recommendations in terms of how, for example, a U.S. administration might kind of approach this, I guess, somewhat new reality. You know, let me kind of summarize what I'm seeing, right? You're saying basically, she has once again consolidated power among himself, but his bureaucracy is not as eager to follow anymore because he's sort of torn apart some of the fabric of the system that kind of kept everything functioning well.

At the same time, he has these Taiwan ambitions, right? Of course, the U.S. has reiterated its support to protect Taiwan, has its own challenges, but there is this aspect of instability and ambition, perhaps, beyond the ability of the military to affect. Okay. And here we are, we have American and other Western leaders wondering, okay, well, how do we deal with this? What do you say to them? I would say the current American policy towards China is, I think, is on the correct track. Because, you know, no matter what you say, you know, the important thing is what you do. I think it's on the correct track. So I don't have many suggestions, but I think the most

important thing is realize that communism, Party won't change. This is a major point. You cannot expect Communist Party, CCP, or Xi Jinping is a normal leader or a normal regime. Even regime is not normal. It's normal, not normal government. So you cannot take it as a normal opponent or another party of the negotiation or anything. So I think this is important to to realize that CCP is, you cannot cooperate with the United States. It cannot, you know, like they use the international organizations, like United Nations or something like that. So I think now the current U.S. government, you know, realize that.

That's why they quit some international organizations because those international organizations are not fully controlled by CCP. So I think just don't expect their normal. That's most important. Once you know they are the troublemaker of the world, you know, you see all the terrorists or all the, you know, trouble making countries, you know, you know, always the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, is behind. So I think that, you know, once you recognize, I think the politicians, they know what to do. So I don't have any suggestion. It's just, you just know exactly who you are dealing with. So something that I've written about in my upcoming book, Killed to Order,

about the forced organ harvesting industry in China and how that system works, is something that's not necessarily very obvious to people in the West. Because in the communist system, the supremacy of the Communist Party is really the absolute top priority of the system, even beyond the basics of human life and dignity and things of this nature. We kind of assume that it's a normal system, but it's not. Right. The Chinese Communist Party, when it established, it was the branch of the international communist movement until in 1930s or 1940s, you know, when starting to dissolve this organization and they're still part of the movement of the international communist movement.

And they never changed their cause. You know, since the communist is not a fit with the human nature, say, well, no, all the communist experiment in every country's field, except in China. But in China, the economic development is against all the odds, right? Because they give up a little bit communist ideology, you know, give some space to the free market. That's why they look successful, but it's not a communist movement successful. It's the free market.

So CCP never give up their power. It's always in the society, it's the number one power. And never give up. Now it's more concentrate, even though Xi Jinping destroyed the system, broke the system. But still, he is in the name of the Communist Party, to protection. So I think that's exactly what happened in

China is you expect every time, you know, when the history in the turning point, every time it turns to the worst. You know, there's nothing turns to the, you know, better. It's always turns to the worst, except Deng Xiaoping's reform. But Deng Xiaoping's reform is the whole system, the whole country is in the lowest point, and you go any direction will be appropriate. So that's the only exception. And now we can see the things turn the worse and worse. So all because the CCP's ideology is against human nature, is against any international rules and against any normal country, normal rule.

So I think that means in China there's no other power. far can be considered as the balance. Even the purge the military leaders, they are not a balance of the, you know, two side. It's like one side who is more extreme. That's the party nature. I think you are absolutely right. Yeah, I mean, it's this zero-sum thinking. It's always sort of a battle to the death, right? some who comes out on top. Panga, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. I mean, we're living in profound times and I, you know, I myself have no idea how it's all going to play out exactly. Do you have a final thought as we finish today?

Yeah, when Ling Biao was purged by Mao Zedong, actually it hit Mao Zedong so hard and he becomes, his health becomes a big problem. And, you know, four years later, Mozart died and the revolution ends. I think this is not the success of Xi Jinping. You know, when he purged the most important, you know, considered as his partner, of course, he doesn't consider their partner,

but you know, the outside was surprised to see that. You know, he purged Zhang Yuchya and Liu Zhengli. And this is not successful of Xi Jinping, not at all. It's a failure. Because if you cannot, you know, you purge everybody, you promoted. That means it's your failure. And I think he realized that. Just like Mao Zedong realized, you know,

Perjee Lingbiao was a mistake or was his own failure. And Xi Jinping also recognized that. It should be. I think we are witnessed the turning point of the history, maybe not immediately, but consider in a couple of years probably. So I think somebody in American mentioned 10 years ago that we should prepare for China without communism. So I think this is the better way for our, you know, the preparation to ready for the big change

in China. Well, Heng He, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you for having me. Thank you all for joining Heng He and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Yanya Kelleck.