PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 21st, 2026: Xi Jinping Purges China’s Military & Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan
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What is the overall focus of today’s PDB Afternoon Bulletin?
It's Monday, the twenty first of September. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, China's military purge is reaching the very top, with Xi Jinping removing two of the country's most powerful generals. I'll have the details. Later in the show, Pakistan carries out new airstrikes inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of suspected militants, as the Taliban warns that there will be a response. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. Xi Jinping has spent more than a decade trying to turn China's military into a force capable of fighting and, of course, winning a modern war. But as Beijing races to expand its military power, Xi is also tearing apart the senior command structure that he built to lead it.
Now, China today formally expelled two of the most powerful generals in the People's Liberation Army, the PLA. That would be Zhang Yu. And Lio Jianli. Now, Zhang was the senior vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, the highest ranking uniformed officer in the country, and until recently, second only to Xi Jinping himself in the military hierarchy. Lio headed the PLA's joint staff department. Now, that puts him at the center of operational planning, training, and coordination between China's different military. Yeah. Both men had already been under investigation, but today Beijing made their downfall official, expelling them from the Communist Party and the military and referring their cases to military prosecutors.
And the accusations go well beyond ordinary corruption. Chinese authorities accuse the two generals of taking enormous sums of money, abusing their positions, and helping others win promotions. But Beijing also says they formed political cliques and factions and were disloyal and dishonest to the Communist Party, the CCP. Now, there's no public evidence that either man was plotting against Xi Jing. Jiinping.
Why did Xi Jinping purge two of the PLA’s most powerful generals?
But the language is striking, because this is no longer simply about officers taking bribes or stealing from military procurement accounts. Beijing itself is saying there was a political problem inside the highest levels of China's military command. And Zhang's fall is especially remarkable. For years he was viewed as one of Xi Jinping's closest military allies. Their families reportedly knew each other going back generally. Generations, and she kept Zhang in a senior position well beyond the age when many Chinese officials normally retire. He was also one of the PLA's few remaining senior officers with actual combat experience, having served during China's war with Vietnam. Lio also had battlefield experience, and now both are gone.
But to understand the scale of what's happening, you do have to zoom out a bit. When Xi assembled the current Central Military Commission back in 2022, it had seven members, including Xi himself. himself. Five of those seven have now been purged. And the result is extraordinary. Xi Xinpen has effectively dismantled much of the senior military leadership team that he personally selected just four years ago. And the purge doesn't stop there. Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have tracked more than one hundred senior PLA officers who have either been removed or appear to have been caught up in the campaign since twenty twenty two. The disruption has reached China's Rocket Force, weapons procurement system, theater commands, political leadership, and the Joint Staff Department.
The purge is essentially reaching into the institutions that Beijing would have to rely on to plan, supply, and command a major war. And that brings us to the point that Washington, DC, is watching very closely. Xi has repeatedly ordered the PLA to improve its ability to fight complex joint operations, with the year twenty twenty seven serving as an important military modernization milestone. That date is often misunderstood. It's not an announced deadline for China to invade Taiwan, but Beijing does want the PLA to be much more capable by then.
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