- Lead. China’s Central Military Commission has promoted two new full generals, the first substantive move to reconstitute military leadership after a two-year anti-corruption purge left the CMC with barely two functioning senior members.
- Fact. The CMC’s five-member body has been reduced to a shell: two vice-chairmen are under investigation, two former defence ministers received suspended death sentences, and two other members face ongoing probes.
- Stake. Xi Jinping is rebuilding a chain of command he can trust ahead of the next Party Congress in late 2027, when the current CMC term ends and a full reconstitution will be formalised.
At a ceremony broadcast on state television on July 3, 2026, President Xi Jinping promoted two officers to full general rank, filling critical gaps in a military leadership that had been gutted by the most extensive anti-corruption campaign the People’s Liberation Army has seen since the founding of the People’s Republic.
The promotions
Zhang Shuguang, previously a lieutenant general, was elevated to full general and appointed head of the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission — the military’s top anti-graft body — and director of the CMC Supervision Committee, taking over from Zhang Shengmin. Wang Gang was simultaneously promoted to full general and named commander of the PLA Air Force. Both appointments were announced via China Central Television and confirmed by the South China Morning Post.
Zhang Shuguang’s appointment to the CMC’s anti-corruption body is significant: his predecessor, Zhang Shengmin, was himself placed under investigation earlier this year, meaning the institution now charged with policing military corruption had itself lost its chief to the purge it was meant to enforce.
The depth of the purge
The scale of the vacuum these appointments partly fill is unusual in the history of the PLA. Of the five CMC members who took office at the 20th Party Congress in 2022, two — vice-chairmen Zhang Youxia and He Weidong — are under investigation. Former defence ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe received suspended death sentences. CMC member Liu Zhenli is under investigation; so is Miao Hua, who headed the CMC Political Work Department. Before the July 3 ceremony, Xi and outgoing Zhang Shengmin were effectively the only active figures at the top of the CMC structure.
The investigations centre on procurement corruption and the use of defence budgets to acquire inferior weapons systems, a problem that came into focus after official assessments of PLA readiness circulated internally during the early stages of the Iran-related military planning discussions in late 2025.
What comes next
The two new generals do not themselves join the CMC — that body’s composition will be formally reset at the 21st Party Congress, expected in autumn 2027. In the interim, the promotions restore functional authority at key command nodes: the PLAAF and the anti-corruption inspectorate, both of which had been operating under uncertainty since their respective chiefs’ departures.
Analysts expect Xi to continue rebuilding the officer corps with loyalists tested during the purge process, rather than restoring institutional seniority norms that allowed patronage networks to take root inside the military apparatus. The next round of promotions, likely later in 2026, may fill the vacant deputy chief of joint staff position and reconstitute the CMC’s equipment development commission.
China’s defence ministry did not offer additional comment beyond the state broadcaster’s announcement of the promotions.