In 2016, Xi was announced as the commander-in-chief of the CMC’s Joint Operations Command Center (JOCC) and was named “core” leader of the CCP Central Committee. Prior to becoming CMC Chairman, Xi served as the CMC’s only civilian Vice Chairman under Hu Jintao. Xi’s father was an important military figure during China’s communist revolution and was a Politburo member in the 1980s. Xi also served as an aide to a defense minister early in his career and had regular interactions with the PLA as a provincial Party official.
Vice Chairman General Zhang Youxia is China’s top uniformed official and former junior vice chairman. Zhang was first appointed to the CMC in 2012 as the head of the General Armaments Department—now the Equipment Development Department (EDD)—where he oversaw the PLA’s manned space program, as well as MCF and military modernization efforts. Zhang gained rare experience as a combat commander during China’s brief war with Vietnam in 1979. Zhang formerly commanded the Shenyang Military Region, which shares a border with North Korea and Russia. Zhang is one of the PLA’s “princelings.” His father, a well-known military figure in China, served with Xi’s father at the close of Chinese Civil War in 1949. Zhang, at age 72 in 2022, was expected to retire due to previously followed age norms within the PLA. However, Zhang’s retention on the CMC for a third term probably reflects Xi’s desire to keep a close and experienced ally as his top military advisor.
Vice Chairman General He Weidong is China’s second-most senior officer and a former commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater. His ascent to a vice chairman position absent prior CMC membership is unusual and probably a testament to his extensive operational experience focused on Taiwan. Before his selection as vice chairman, He served a brief stint in the CMC JOCC where he played a key role in planning live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait as part of the PLA response to the then-U.S. House Speaker Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taipei. He may have close ties to Xi due to their overlapping service in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Minister of National Defense General Li Shangfu was appointed to the CMC at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, and as the Minister of National Defense at the NPC in March 2023. Li is the PLA’s third-most senior officer and manages its relationship with state bureaucracies and foreign militaries. Unlike the U.S. Secretary of Defense, he is not part of the chain of command and his primary policy influence is derived from membership on the CMC and State Council, where he serves as a direct liaison for civil-military integration, defense mobilization, and budgeting. Li previously headed the EDD where he managed the PLA’s weapons development and acquisition efforts and China’s manned space program. In 2018, Li was sanctioned by the United States for his role as EDD director overseeing the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missile systems.
Joint Staff Department Chief General Liu Zhenli oversees PLA joint operations, a narrowing of the wider responsibilities held by the former General Staff Department prior to reforms initiated in 2015. Liu is one of few remaining active-duty PLA officers with combat experience and is recognized as a combat hero for his service in China’s border war with Vietnam. Like his
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
