HMM: Why is Xi Jinping’s China purging its senior military leaders?

“Xi appears to be chronically distrustful of his most prominent military officials,” Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AFP.

Reports of Dong’s fall suggested “the rot in China’s military remains even deeper than previously suspected”, Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society, told AFP.

The crackdown has come as China has increased military pressure on Taiwan and repeatedly pushed up against its neighbours over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

But analysts say graft in the military may be raising worries that the army isn’t up to the job.

Something Xi is looking to fix?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The Japanese War Party purged the military of war-skeptics before launching World War II. They chose. . . poorly.