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How China’s leader Xi lost faith in his generals
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Chinese President Xi Jinping believed that to instill loyalty in the military to the Communist Party and to him, he had to revive "political work".
PHOTO: REUTERS
Chris Buckley
BEIJING – The purge China’s leader, Mr Xi Jinping, has inflicted on the military elite was plain to see at a recent legislative meeting. A year earlier, state television footage showed around 40 generals in the room. This time, there were only a handful.
Yet Mr Xi indicated that an upheaval that rivalled those of the Mao Zedong era was not over. Stony-faced, he warned the remaining officers to beware of disloyalty.
