Xi Shakes Up China's Military After Purge

China has rolled out the largest restructuring of its military in almost a decade, focusing on technology-driven strategic forces equipped for modern warfare, as Beijing vies with Washington for military primacy in a region rife with geopolitical tensions, reported Nectar Gan for CNN.

The now-dissolved Strategic Support Force (SSF) was a military branch he created in 2015 to integrate the People’s Liberation Army’s space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities as part of a sweeping overhaul of the armed forces. I Photo: CGTN

In a surprise move last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping scrapped the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a military branch he created in 2015 to integrate the People’s Liberation Army’s space, cyber, electronic, and psychological warfare capabilities as part of a sweeping overhaul of the armed forces.

In its place, Xi inaugurated the Information Support Force, which he said was “a brand-new strategic arm of the PLA and a key underpinning of coordinated development and application of the network information system.”

At a recent briefing, a spokesperson for China’s Defense Ministry appeared to suggest the SSF was effectively broken into three units – the Information Support Force, the Aerospace Force, and the Cyberspace Force – which will answer directly to the Central Military Commission (CMC), the body at the top of the military chain of command headed by Xi.

Experts on the Chinese military say the reorganization enhances Xi’s direct control over the PLA’s strategic capabilities and underscores China’s ambitions in better mastering AI and other new technologies to prepare for what it calls the “intelligentized warfare” of the future.