Amid ongoing turmoil within the CCP military, the CCP has held a ten-week training program for senior officers across the entire armed forces. The CCP's military newspaper disclosed that during the training, these senior generals were required to watch cautionary educational films, revisit Party discipline and military regulations, and even retrain in basic formation drills — subjects normally taught to new recruits — during morning exercises, drawing outside attention.
According to a June 24 report by the PLA Daily, the first session of the military-wide senior cadre training program was held at the National Defense University in Beijing from April 8 to June 16.
The training program included more than 40 theoretical lectures in total. Beyond studying Xi Jinping Thought, participants were also required to watch cautionary educational films, study Party discipline and military regulations, revisit their Party membership oath, and, during morning exercises, drill on basics like standing at attention, parade rest, and turning — subjects typically taught to new recruits.
Experts believe that morning drills are a traditional requirement at military academies, but carry a strong undertone of political submission in this context.
Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, said: "Military academies have always required morning drills — lining up first thing in the morning, standing at attention, turning left, turning right. Whether you're a senior or junior officer, everyone does morning drills. These are militarily quite juvenile exercises — their real purpose is to make officers submit, politically submissive, politically loyal."
Feng Chongyi noted that ever since Xi Jinping came to power, everyone across the Party, government, and military has lived in a state of constant insecurity — an atmosphere he believes Xi has deliberately cultivated.
Feng Chongyi said: "Now there are only the two of them left on the Military Commission — everything is just performance, pure theater; mutual trust has completely evaporated, and everyone is just trying to survive. For Xi Jinping to remain in charge, he has to guard against everyone. Everyone else lives in constant dread, walking on eggshells, terrified the axe might fall on their own heads, not daring to compete for anything."
In his first decade in power, Xi Jinping pushed through military reforms, dismantling the old four-general-departments system and redrawing the theater command structure, while using high-level anti-corruption campaigns and personnel reshuffles to strengthen the "CMC chairman responsibility system" and tighten his absolute grip over the "barrel of the gun."
In his third term, Xi has once again launched a large-scale purge of the military since 2023, with a large number of senior generals falling from power — including members of Xi's own faction and even his close confidants: CMC Vice Chairman He Weidong, CMC member Miao Hua, CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia, and CMC member Liu Zhenli.
Political commentator Chen Pokong believes that Xi Jinping's continued purging of the military, combined with holding this senior officer training program, carries both an intent to assert authority and to intimidate.
Political commentator Chen Pokong said: "This itself reflects Xi Jinping's own insecurity, and on top of that, an arrogant self-importance — a mindset of aspiring to be emperor. That was the first stage. Now we've entered the second stage: using anti-corruption as a pretext for a massive purge of the military, toppling full generals, toppling members of the Central Military Commission — so that there's no one left around him, leaving a stark power gap between him and every other general or officer."
On January 24 of this year, after Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli came under investigation, the Central Military Commission issued the Regulations on Party Organization Elections in the Military; in May, the Commission issued Several Measures on Strengthening Education, Management, and Oversight of Senior Military Cadres, further tightening supervision and management of senior officers.
Chen Pokong said: "By toppling Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, Xi Jinping eliminated the most serious internal threats to his power. But at the same time, he also knows this has deepened resentment and made enemies within the Party and military. So the approach he's now taking follows Mao Zedong's old playbook — issuing document after document, notice after notice, study session after study session, all aimed at brainwashing everyone, warning everyone, and intimidating everyone."
At the opening ceremony of this senior officer training program, Xi Jinping once again emphasized anti-corruption, declaring that "any mindset or behavior driven by personal gain and corruption is fundamentally incompatible with the nature and purpose of the Party," and warned the military that "there must absolutely be no one harboring divided loyalties."
Chen Pokong said: "This anti-corruption effort can never actually succeed, because a genuine fight against corruption would require reforming the system itself — depoliticizing the military under state control, and establishing genuine mutual oversight and checks and balances. As long as the system itself remains untouched, and corruption continues to be fought through rule by individual fiat instead, corruption will only keep snowballing, growing larger and larger."
Experts believe that, from senior generals being sent to training programs to the military's continuous rollout of rectification and oversight directives, what all of this reflects is Xi Jinping's profound sense of insecurity, along with the very real state of disintegrating morale and turmoil within the military's ranks.