China's armed forces elevated two officers to the rank of general on Friday in a move widely seen as a possible precursor to a broader leadership reshuffle at the top of the military, following one of the largest purges of senior PLA leadership in the history of the People's Republic. Analysts believe the shake-up is partly intended to reinforce the armed forces' loyalty to the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping. Xi, who chairs the Central Military Commission (CMC), presided over a ceremony promoting Zhang Shuguang and air force commander Wang Gang to the rank of general. Zhang was additionally named head of the commission's internal anti-corruption investigative division. The promotions position both men as likely candidates to fill vacancies on the seven-member CMC, China's top military body, which corruption investigations have effectively cut down to just two active members: Xi himself and Vice Chair Zhang Shengmin. A new commission is expected to be formally announced in the fall of 2027, when the current body's five-year term concludes. **A commission gutted by scandal** The vacancies trace back through a cascade of high-level removals. In October 2025, the Communist Party expelled Gen. He Weidong, then the CMC's second vice chair and a member of the Politburo, along with eight other senior officers, over what China's Defense Ministry described as serious violations involving "exceptionally large amounts of money." He was replaced by Zhang Shengmin. That was followed in January 2026 by the removal of Gen. Zhang Youxia โ€” the commission's senior vice chair and, at the time, the highest-ranking military officer below Xi himself โ€” along with Gen. Liu Zhenli, chief of the PLA's Joint Staff Department. Chinese state media accused the pair of having "seriously trampled on and undermined" the military's chain of responsibility under Xi, though authorities disclosed few specifics. Zhang, 75, had long been considered one of the military's most secure figures given his decades of service and perceived closeness to Xi, making his fall especially striking to China-watchers. Taken together, the departures of He, Zhang Youxia and Liu left the seven-member commission reduced to just Xi and Zhang Shengmin โ€” an unprecedented hollowing-out of the body that sits atop China's roughly two-million-strong armed forces. **Part of a decade-long campaign** The purge fits into a far larger pattern: more than 200,000 officials across China have faced punishment under Xi's anti-corruption campaign since he took power in 2012, and at least 17 PLA generals have been removed from military posts over that period, including eight who previously sat on the Central Military Commission itself. Two former defense ministers were also expelled from the party in 2024 over corruption allegations. Experts are divided on what the upheaval means going forward. Some, like Alessandro Arduino of the Royal United Services Institute, have framed the removals as a signal that "political loyalty stands well before combat readiness" in Xi's assessment of the military's needs. Others caution against reading too much into the corruption allegations themselves. "I do not believe any evidence publicly released or selectively leaked by Chinese authorities would necessarily reflect the core reason" for a removal, Pacific Forum fellow K. Tristan Tang has said, arguing that once Xi moves against a figure, "problems are almost inevitably uncovered." The scale of the leadership churn has also raised questions among some analysts about its potential impact on Beijing's posture toward Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, though the practical implications remain unclear.