The size of the military delegation to China’s rubber stamp parliament is falling and may shrink further, as leader Xi Jinping’s purges cast a shadow over Beijing’s biggest annual political event.
The military delegation at the annual plenary session of the National People’s Congress, which opens on Wednesday, will number 267, down from the 281 appointed in 2023. Fourteen have been removed because of corruption investigations.
Of the 2,997 appointed to the NPC in 2023, 2,942 remain.
The military delegation — including representatives from the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police — has suffered a greater reduction in size than any other provincial delegation, government or industry segment represented in the NPC and an advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), according to an FT review of the delegate list, NPC announcements and official media reports.
The data underscores that Xi’s crackdown on what the Chinese Communist party commonly calls “discipline violations” is taking a heavier toll on the armed forces than other parts of society.
The corruption purges come as Communist party leaders are expected to prioritise the economy this year in what is known as the “two sessions” — the CPPCC and NPC annual meetings.
Beijing will be concerned that rising US tariffs will hit China’s booming exports, which in the past two years have offset a deep property slump in the domestic economy.
China’s leaders are expected to announce another ambitious GDP growth target of 5 per cent this year to be fuelled by larger stimulus measures.
But the removal of military personnel from the NPC and CPPCC due to anti-corruption investigations is a reminder of Xi’s longer-term focus on optimising China’s military as the country competes with the US for dominance around Taiwan and the South China Sea.
“The reduced numbers of the military delegation will not have an impact on the NPC, but they certainly highlight Xi’s continued push to assert his control over the armed forces,” said Lin Ying-yu, a professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University who researches the Chinese military.
This year’s increase of official military spending, expected to be included in the budget on March 5, and Xi’s address to military delegates on March 7 are the key military events.
Despite disrupting the leading echelons of the entire PLA, the crackdown has had no noticeable effect on the military’s capabilities and operational tempo. The army continues to raise the pressure on Taiwan and deploys to locations ever farther from China.
Beijing removed 10 military NPC delegates prior to last year’s two sessions after Xi began to crack down on the Rocket Force, the PLA arm responsible for missiles including nuclear ones, and the weapons procurement bureaucracy.
Since last March, four more top military officials have lost their status as NPC delegates after getting entangled in the widening investigations: former defence minister Li Shangfu and former PLA deputy commander Deng Zhiping were recalled in September.
In December, Deng’s predecessor as PLA deputy commander You Haitao and Li Pengcheng, former navy commander in the PLA’s southern military region, were stripped of their mandates, too.
The PLA’s presence at next year’s plenary session is likely to be even smaller: Miao Hua, the Chinese military’s top political commissar, was ensnared in the crackdown when he was suspended from his duties as a member of the Central Military Commission, the organ headed by Xi that holds the top command over the armed forces, and head of the CMC’s political work department in November. The NPC has not announced his removal as a delegate, but Miao is not expected to attend.
Observers are watching out for three more military delegates who have recently disappeared from public view: Li Qiaoming and Wang Chunning, the commanders of the PLA and the People’s Armed Police, as well as Yuan Huazhi, the PLA navy’s political commissar, were absent in key meetings in December and January, according to Chinese state media footage.
