The article comes ahead of key decisions on leadership roles, which are expected to reveal which faction is in control of the party and its military.
The Chinese communist regime’s official military newspaper published a commentary during the “National Day” holiday week, urging the military to maintain a state of combat readiness at all times.
The call for combat readiness came amid the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ongoing purge of its top generals and the regime’s lingering threat of taking Taiwan by force.
Analysts have expressed doubts over the CCP military’s actual combat abilities, as well as the purpose and timing of the call.
On Oct. 6, the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, an important traditional Chinese event that fell in the same week as the “National Day,” the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army Daily published a short commentary on its front page.
It said that the security situation of communist China is “increasingly unstable and uncertain,” which calls for a constant state of military preparedness, and that PLA officers and soldiers should make sure they are “always ready for combat” and “able to fight at any time.”
The PLA has been undergoing a severe purge of its top echelon in recent years, with an estimated 100 generals having been taken down, including some close associates of CCP leader Xi Jinping.
Of the seven members of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, only four remain, and three have been taken down without being replaced, including former Defense Minister Li Shangfu’s seat in the commission since 2023. After Miao Hua, former director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, was removed in 2024, the crucial position remained vacant. Commission Vice Chairman He Weidong has disappeared from public view since March 2025, with no official announcement about what happened to him. The sole remaining vice chairman, Zhang Youxia, is left to manage the overall situation.
The purge and the vacant top positions signify the loss of the central command for organizational and political leadership within the CCP’s military, according to observers.
The CCP announced recently that its top political meeting, the Fourth Plenary Session of the CCP Central Committee, will be held in Beijing from Oct. 20 to 23, and is expected to decide who will fill the vacant top military positions. The decisions will also reveal which faction is in control of the CCP and its military.
By Alex Wu
