By Jian Yi
Inside the U.S. intelligence community, Xi Jinping has acquired a new nickname: “The Destroyer.” It is not a flourish, but a judgment.
The label follows Xi’s decision to detain Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, two of the most senior figures in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). To American intelligence professionals, these moves confirm something fundamental about Xi’s rule: his willingness to govern the military through fear, humiliation, and annihilation of trust.
As one assessment bluntly puts it: being ruthless toward enemies is one thing. Being just as ruthless toward friends is another.
A former CIA Deputy Director highlights the stakes
On Feb. 2, Dennis Wilder, a former Assistant Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, publicly drew attention to a newly published analysis on X. Written by a former CIA colleague and published in Foreign Affairs, the article, Wilder said, captured the true meaning of Xi’s latest purge.
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The key point, Wilder emphasized, is this: the arrests of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli do not suggest that Xi Jinping is distracted from the prospect of a military conflict over Taiwan. Quite the opposite. They demonstrate how seriously he is preparing for it.
Wilder is not a casual observer. During his CIA career, he oversaw intelligence analysis for East Asia and the Pacific. Under the George W. Bush administration, he served as Senior Director for East Asian Affairs at the National Security Council and spent six years editing the President’s Daily Brief. He now teaches intelligence, national security, and geopolitics.
The article that named Xi
The analysis Wilder highlighted carries a stark title: “Xi the Destroyer.”
Its authors are two of the most experienced China specialists to emerge from the U.S. intelligence system:
- Jonathan A. Czin (Qin Jiangnan), Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center. He served as Director for China at the U.S. National Security Council from 2021 to 2023 and previously worked as a senior CIA analyst.
- John Culver, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings’ John L. Thornton China Center, who spent 35 years at the CIA, including service as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2018.
From revolutionary blood ties to public disposal
The authors begin with history—specifically, the deep personal bond between Xi Jinping and Zhang Youxia.
Xi and Zhang have known each other for decades. Their fathers fought side by side during China’s bloody civil war. Within elite circles, Zhang was widely regarded as Xi’s most trusted ally in the military.
As recently as 2022, after purging other senior officials, Xi not only allowed Zhang to remain in office beyond the informal retirement age of 68 but promoted him to the highest-ranking position in the armed forces.
That history is precisely what makes Zhang’s downfall so revealing.
A leader who trusts no one
Zhang Youxia’s removal, the authors argue, exposes how little trust Xi Jinping actually has in the PLA.
The manner of the purge matters. Zhang was not eased aside. He was stripped of authority publicly and without dignity. This, the authors write, illustrates Xi’s governing method in its purest form.
Mercilessness toward enemies is expected. Mercilessness toward lifelong allies is a warning.
For China’s political elite, the message could not be clearer.
‘No forbidden zones’ in Xi’s China
By publicly sidelining Zhang Youxia, the authors write, Xi Jinping revealed a defining trait of his political style: no one is safe—not even those bound to him by decades of personal loyalty.
The article cites PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military, which declared the day after Zhang’s removal that Xi’s actions had “no forbidden zones.”
Even by the standards of Xi’s already harsh rule, the authors conclude, this was a political earthquake inside the Chinese Communist Party.
Why Xi chose this moment
The timing raises an obvious question: why act now?
Xi could easily have waited. Zhang Youxia is 75 years old, far beyond the informal retirement age. The next Chinese Communist Party National Congress—held every five years—is less than 18 months away. A quiet retirement was fully available.
Instead, Xi chose spectacle.
The authors compare the decision to Xi’s display of raw power at the 2022 Party Congress, when former leader Hu Jintao was forcibly escorted out of the Great Hall of the People as Xi watched impassively.
In both cases, the message was the same: resistance is futile, and loyalty offers no protection.
Xi’s core anxiety: control of the gun
At the center of the article lies a critical insight: Xi Jinping’s deepest fear is not foreign enemies, but the military itself.
The authors focus on the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Party’s highest military authority. They argue Xi may appoint additional civilian members to the CMC—a move traditionally reserved for signaling a designated successor and reinforcing Party supremacy over the armed forces.
With senior military officers increasingly purged, Xi’s room to maneuver is narrowing.
Each new civilian appointment to the CMC, the authors note, will be interpreted as identifying a potential successor—and as another step toward hollowing out the military’s professional autonomy.
The Arab Spring and Xi’s permanent trauma
One of the article’s most revealing sections traces Xi’s paranoia back to the Arab Spring, which erupted just as he was entering the Central Military Commission.
Watching regimes collapse after their militaries refused to suppress unrest left a lasting mark. From that moment, the authors argue, breaking the military’s ability to resist Party orders—especially during crises—became an obsession for Xi Jinping.
The purges that followed were not episodic. They were structural.
What this means for Taiwan
What does Xi’s ongoing military purge mean for Taiwan?
According to the authors, Xi is exploiting the current lull across the Taiwan Strait to prepare.
As demonstrated by the PLA’s large-scale exercises around Taiwan last December, the Chinese Communist Party now possesses the ability to carry out punitive military actions without launching a full-scale invasion.
The destruction of trust inside the PLA, in this view, is part of that preparation—not a distraction from it.
The ending Xi cannot control
The article closes on a question Xi himself has yet to answer.
Can he build a military that is both absolutely loyal to the Party and capable of meeting his demands for combat effectiveness?
So far, the authors suggest, the answer is no.
Among Chinese communities at home and abroad, Xi Jinping is often called “the Accelerator”—a leader who hastens the system toward collapse.
Paired with the new nickname circulating in U.S. intelligence circles, the image is stark and unforgiving:
Xi Jinping, the Accelerator—and the Destroyer of the Chinese Communist Party.
