‘It’s not just the uniformed officers who don’t cooperate. Civilian administrators are also staying silent,’ a source inside China said.
News Analysis
Insiders with knowledge of the Chinese regime’s internal discussions say passive noncompliance has begun to spread from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into the civilian administrative system, complicating Beijing’s ability to enforce key directives issued by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Multiple insiders who spoke to The Epoch Times said this breakdown in command is part of a long-standing pattern of tension between the senior Party leadership and the military. They pointed to previous episodes in which top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials encountered resistance from the military while attempting to manage politically sensitive crises, particularly under former CCP leader Jiang Zemin.
The latest tensions are occurring after a political purge within the armed forces, and are accompanied by a renewed push to enforce personal loyalty to Xi. Analysts and insiders say the latter has instead exposed weaknesses in Xi’s highly centralized command model, raising questions about the stability of his control over China’s military apparatus.
The analysts and insiders who spoke to The Epoch Times are based in China and provided only their surnames out of fear of reprisal.
Cost of the CCP’s Purges
In China’s military hierarchy, the Central Military Commission (CMC) sits at the top of the chain of command, with Xi as its chairman.
According to Feng, a source familiar with elite CCP politics, Xi’s recent purge of two powerful military leaders—Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CMC, and Liu Zhenli, chief of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department—has sent shockwaves through the PLA and may have broader consequences for the CCP itself.
For decades, the CCP has prioritized political loyalty over professional competence, often purging experienced officers. According to Feng, the institutional costs of that strategy are now converging.
Although the precise status of Zhang Youxia and Liu remains unclear, China-based insiders told The Epoch Times that both have refused to cooperate with investigators. Their noncooperation is likely known to the PLA’s lowest-level officers and soldiers, who now are showing reluctance to act on orders from the top.
That noncompliance is in turn spilling into the broader bureaucracy, weakening the regime’s administrative machinery, Feng said. Passive resistance within the PLA—manifested through silence, delay, and noncooperation—is increasingly affecting the regime’s civilian governance.
