PLA purge affecting exercise schedule: CSISBy Fan Wei-li / Staff reporterAn “unprecedented purge” of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is affecting its exercise schedule and would make it difficult for China to launch a large-scale military operation against Taiwan in the short term, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report on Feb. 24. The report also analyzed the “near-complete decapitation” of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Military Commission. The CCP’s highest military decisionmaking body no longer has leaders from the operational system, it said. Combining the US think tank’s report with the reality of recent “zero incursions” by warplanes for a week shows that the PLA is preoccupied with internal restructuring and personnel purges, the CSIS report said. China’s goal would be to weaken the sense of urgency in Taiwan regarding the need to boost defense resilience, he added.

Source: Taipei Times March 07, 2026 17:12 UTC