It's great pleasure to welcome my colleague and mentor, Gregory Copley. He is the editor and publisher Defense & Foreign Affairs, as well as the author of the new book, Noble State.
We turn to the matter at hand, which is the mystery of the Chinese military continually being purged. What does it mean?
From Financial Times, the pink paper out of London: “Chinese defense minister set to skip security forum in Singapore.”
Subhead: “Admiral’s absence from Shangri-La Dialogue would come as Xi Jinping purges high-level officers.”
When I read this headline, I thought, Gregory has told me something funny is going on with the military and Xi Jinping.
My memory of the way he presented it is, the military has told Xi quite clearly—the generals, the admirals, the defense ministers, and there have been a series of them that have been purged—we're not ready to fight your war. We're not going to do it. We're not capable to take on the US Navy, the US Air Force, the collective might of Japan, and all the rest of our neighbors. We are not ready.
And Xi either listened to them or not, I'm not sure how he responded, but he keeps purging people he chose. Foreign ministers, defense ministers, admirals, generals—they keep disappearing. The rocket forces (that’s their nuclear forces), including the commissar, disappeared.
So is this XI pushing back against the military? Because it sure looks unstable, but there's no interpretation.
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