If Xi Jinping can establish control over the PLA Ground Force, relations between India and China will settle down to an even keel.
The next few weeks will show whether Xi has finally succeeded in gaining control over the PLA Ground Force.
That could bring about the substantive shift in India-China relations that both our leaders have been working for, observes Ambassador Prabhat Shukla.
Brief summary
- President Xi has been locked in an institutional confrontation with the PLA Ground Force almost from the beginning of his tenure. Relations with India are one of the major points of dispute.
- In the ongoing clash, the PLA was slowly gaining the upper hand up until the fourth plenum, when a number of Xi loyalists were removed from their posts, including General He Weidong as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
- With some adroit moves in late 2025, President Xi was able to face down the challenge with the removal of Generals Zhang Youxia as Vice Chairman, and General Liu Zhenli as member, of the Central Military Commission. These two officers together were the focal point of the recent opposition to President Xi.
- However, the situation has not stabilised yet, and the speed with which President Xi can fill the vacant posts, and the choice of personnel, will determine the final outcome of the struggle.
A spokesman of the Chinese defence ministry announced on January 24 that the two generals -- Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli -- had been placed under investigation for violations of discipline and the law. General Zhang was the first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission; there are two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission; General Liu was the head of the Joint Staff Department.
According to the South China Morning Post newspaper, the two men were detained on January 19, and the announcement was made five days later.
While the initial charge was as announced by the ministry of defence, a later elaboration was put out by the Xinhua news agency in a commentary in the PLA Daily newspaper this was re-printed in the PLA Daily online in English. This commentary elaborated on the charges, which included 'trampling on the Chairman responsibility system' and inflicting harm on the combat capability of the armed forces.
General Zhang is the senior-most serving officer in the People's Liberation Army. He is the son of another PLA general, Zhang Zongxun, who was a commander in the Civil War in the late 1940s, and fought alongside President Xi Jinping's father, Xi Zhongxun, who was political commissar.
He is also one of the few combat veterans still in service, having fought against Vietnam in 1979, and again in the 1984 Battle of Laoshan for which he was decorated. He thus enjoys great prestige in the PLA.
General Liu Zhenli is another of the few remaining PLA combat veterans, and rose up the ranks to the present position. He was briefly sidelined -- in retrospect, clearly by Xi -- to the People's Armed Police in 2015, but was then recalled to the Ground Force.
Apart from what the Chinese sources have themselves put out, the Wall Street Journal newspaper has added that General Zhang is also accused of having provided nuclear secrets to the US -- a charge that has few takers in the analyst community. He is also charged with taking bribes for promoting officers for money, another dubious claim.
These claims have now been debunked. According to the Chinese-language Singapore newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, the Chinese defence ministry spokesman said that only official statements by the government were accurate, the rest was speculation.
Since General Zhang's removal in particular, there have been many articles building up his importance and closeness to President Xi; while this is partly true, the fact is that, until the 20th congress of the Communist Party, he was a relatively minor figure in the Central Military Commission.
In contrast to the claims made on his behalf, he did not have much to do with the restructuring of the PLA in 2015-2016; the principal architect of that was Air Force General Xu Qiliang, then the second vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
There is an important back story here which concerns India, and which is worth exploring in order to get the proper perspective on the changes that happened in January 2026.
It will be remembered that, when Xi visited India in September 2014, his first visit to India, there was the usual activity on the border by the PLA, when they sent troops into Chumar in Ladakh.
This was part of the standard pattern of PLA behaviour: Even in 2013, when then premier Li Keqiang was due in India, the PLA had entered Depsang, and had pitched tents for the first time. It took serious diplomatic efforts for their withdrawal, so that Li's visit could go ahead.
There were similar challenges to the political leadership occurring in the South China Sea. Even though Xi had assured his US counterpart, then President Barack Obama, that they would not militarise the islands they were claiming, the PLA went ahead and did just that.
Xi followed up on these, and other aspects of PLA operations, to launch his major restructuring of the PLA in 2015-2016. The main outcome, probably also the main aim, was to weaken the PLA Ground Force, which was reduced to the level of the other services, namely the navy and air force.
The Ground Force's control over the land-based missiles, including the nuclear arms, was also detached and converted into a separate and co-equal Rocket Force, on par with the other services. The size of the Ground Force was also reduced by 300,000 men.
This was the genesis of the continuing quiet resistance of the Ground Force to President Xi. The man who drove the changes, as already mentioned, was an air force officer, General Xu Qiliang, who was the junior vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
At this time, General Zhang was an ordinary member of the Central Military Commission, dealing with equipment procurement, and in no position to make structural changes in the PLA. It is important to recognise that the opposition to President Xi was not a monolith: There were officers in the Ground Force who supported him, and one of them was General He Weidong, another India connection.
General He was the commander of the Ground Force in the Western Theater Command, and had kept things quiet on the border with India, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi developed their detente through the informal summits in 2018 [Wuhan] and 2019 [Mamallapuram].
The broader context is also important here: This was the time when India had changed the status of Jammu and Kashmir, and then Chinese foreign minister had unsuccessfully agitated the UN to get involved; this was also the time when India had attacked Balakot in Pakistan, China's 'all-weather ally'. This allowed the Mamallapuram summit to go forward without a hitch.
General He Weidong was moved out in December 2019, and a new officer, General Xu Qiling [not to be confused with Air Force General Xu Qiliang, mentioned above] replaced him in April 2020. And this led to the murderous clash in Galwan in June 2020, which ended the personal diplomacy between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi, even though the two leaders had announced the third round to take place in 2020. This was a spectacular act of defiance by the PLA Ground Force against its own commander-in-chief.
This is why President Xi rewarded General He Weidong at the 20th party congress in 2022 by catapulting him straight to the post of vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. It was here also that General Zhang Youxia became the senior Vice Chairman since General Xu Qiliang retired from the Central Military Commission.
General He Weidong was expelled from the party and removed from all his posts last October, a reflection of the growing clout of General Zhang Youxia at this point in time. All this was part of the ongoing struggle for power between the Ground Force and President Xi. At this time, General Zhang became the focal point of the Ground Force resistance, and the issues between the two sides went beyond just the India policy, though that remained important.
This is the background to the events of January 2026: A simmering dispute between the Ground Force and President Xi took a decisive turn when the latter moved against General Zhang.
The disposition of forces in Beijing is important for understanding the more granular details of the episode, which is not yet played out, from all accounts. There is, first of all, the Central Theater Command, responsible for Beijing, which has at its disposal, among other forces, the 82nd Group Army, which was called in recently by General Zhang himself.
The 82nd Group Army, is the successor to the 38th Group Army which eventually crushed the 1989 demonstrations by the student-protestors in 1989 in Tiananmen Square. As part of the 2016 restructuring, Group Armies were given new numbers.
In addition, there is also the People's Armed Police, recently transferred under the command of the Central Military Commission. As noted, General Liu had served as its chief of staff in 2015. General Liu also commanded the 82nd Group Army in 2014. Thus, he has connections and a support base in both these institutions.
Besides these two, which each has some 1.5 million to 2 million personnel, there is the ministry of public security special forces, again with over a million men at its disposal, and, lastly, the Central Guard Bureau, a smaller force dedicated to the security of the leadership and their families.
It comes under the direct control of the general office of the Communist party central committee. At present, it is under the control of Xi loyalist, Cao Qi, a member of the standing committee of the Communist party politburo.
It was these last two forces that were reported to have carried out the detention of the two generals, whose current whereabouts are unknown.
Other details have been provided by sources that have proved reliable in the past. One says that there was a shoot-out on January 18 between forces loyal to General Zhang [he has his own personal bodyguard], and the Central Guard Bureau forces. As a result, and fearing more fighting by the Ground Force, it is reported that bullets and mobile phones have been withdrawn from a large number of officers to ensure that no large-scale action is possible.
Another angle is that there has, so far, been no public statement of support for the detentions and charges against, and denunciations of the two generals, as would be expected after an operation of this magnitude.
Another puzzling phenomenon is that the Xinhua article critical of the two Generals does not appear on Xinhua itself, and was not attributable to any military source. These inexplicable occurrences suggest that there is resentment among the officers and men, among whom the two generals, particularly Zhang Youxia, was highly respected.
Taiwan is another issue that has cropped up: It is being suggested that President Xi wanted action against Taiwan by 2027, while the professional soldiers were doubtful about being able to do this successfully. The point about 2027 is that it may well be Xi's last year in power, but if he were to deliver unification of Taiwan, it would make him leader for life.
Of course, India has been a running dispute between Xi and the PLA. The former seeks a stable accommodation with India, the latter lean towards Pakistan. In fact, General Zhang had almost a meeting every year with the Pakistan army chief.
A look at the dramatis personae is also revealing. Of the forces that could be lined up with the two generals, there are interesting developments. The Central Theater Command commander was recently replaced by an air force officer, General Han Shengyan; President Xi has been turning to air force and navy personnel to replace Ground Force men. This change happened in December 2025, and Xi moved against the two generals in January 2026 -- not likely to be a coincidence.
The Ground Force itself is headless at the moment, and therefore hesitant to move. Its last incumbent, General Li Qiaoming, succeeded General Liu as Commander of the Ground Force, but he was removed in December 2024, and no successor has been appointed.
The special importance of the Ground Force in the present context, apart from its usual role, is that the Ground Force has direct control over three military districts -- Beijing, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
As for the People's Armed Police, it is also headless at the moment. Its head, Wang Chunning, was removed in July 2025, and replaced by an acting head. So, again, without a senior person in charge, it would also be reluctant to act on its own.
These are not just remarkable coincidences, but shows how adroitly Xi strategised these changes: Most of the replacements mentioned above, have a link to the Western Theater Command, which is the Command on the border with India.
General Han Shengyan, for example, was commander of the Air Force is the Western Theater Command from September 2016 to November 2018. Similarly, the political commissar of the Central Theater Command played the same role in the Western Theater Command in the period 2018 to 2022. The fact that they moved up when General He Weidong was vice chairman suggests that they owe their promotions, and hence loyalty, to him, and therefore also to Xi.
Equally noteworthy, all of them served there at the same time as General He Weidong, who was the officer in charge of the Ground Force in the command, and who kept things under control at the border while Xi was building ties with Prime Minister Modi in the period 2017 to 2019, with the informal summits.
It was only after he was moved out that the fighting in Galwan took place, which put paid to the promising initiative that President Xi had launched.
Now, however, the PLA top structure has been hollowed out. The top level, the Central Military Commission, has only two members now, where it had seven when formed in October 2022, after the 20th party congress.
Of these, only one is a man in uniform, Vice Chair General Zhang Shengmin, the other being Xi himself; General Zhang Shengmin is, however, not a combat officer, but one who has spent his career in political and discipline work.
Many of the Theater Commands are headless too, though they have not been officially removed. For example, the commander of the Western Theater Command has not been seen in public for several months, and missed the 4th plenum of the central committee in October 2024, along with several of his military colleagues.
Altogether, it was reported that 17 of the 41 military members of the central committee were missing from the fourth plenum.
Perhaps this was the price to be paid in order to assert civilian control over the PLA; only time will tell. The recent past does not offer encouragement: Despite several changes of top officers in the Central Military Commission, the opposition of the Ground Force has continued; there is clearly an institutional issue here.
As of this writing, the situation remains confused, and there are reports of efforts at bringing stability back into the system by Communist party elders, and even suggestions that Xi himself is facing buyer's remorse, fearing that he went too far, and has antagonised the PLA.
It is worth recalling that, very early in his tenure, Xi had mentioned the loyalty of the armed forces to the Communist party as one of the pillars of their rule. He had blamed the fall of the Soviet Union on the fact that its armed forces had ceased to be the sword arm of the Communist party, and had become the armed forces of the country.
An interesting anecdote of recent vintage also highlights this aspect. This relates to the leak of the 6-hour video of the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who was in 1989 the commander of the 38th Group Army -- today, it is the 82nd Group Army, mentioned above - who had refused to fire on the student protestors in Tiananmen Square.
In a purported letter from General Zhang Youxia released after his arrest, he speaks in support of General Xu Qinxian. Could he himself have released the video? The letter claims not to know how the video got leaked, but it seems unlikely that Xi would leak such a video, with its message of the military defying an order from the political leadership.
In conclusion, it seems clear that the cycle of events is not played out yet, and it will take time for things to settle down. At the same time, President Xi does not have much time. The 'two Sessions -- of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference -- are due in early March; and a visit by US President Donald Trump is due in April. He must clean house within a month, or face further difficulties.
Another event to watch out for concerns India. After the Galwan fighting, Xi has not visited India, probably under PLA pressure. Thus, even when India hosted the G20 summit in September 2023, China was represented by Premier Li Qiang, not Xi himself.
Now, this year, India is hosting the BRICS summit; it will be worth noting whether President Xi will attend in person. If he does, that will show that he has indeed overcome the resistance from those who oppose a strategic accommodation with India.
For India, therefore it would be fair to conclude that, if Xi Jinping can make these changes stick and establish control over the PLA Ground Force, relations between India and China will settle down to an even keel.
The next few weeks will show whether President Xi has finally succeeded in gaining control over the PLA Ground Force. That could bring about the substantive shift in India-China relations that both our leaders have been working for.
Ambassador Prabhat Shukla has served as India's envoy to Russia, and has also served in Brussels, London, Canberra, Singapore, Kathmandu and five years in the prime minister's office.
© 2026