Paranoia in Xi’s China: CCP Leader Moving to the Center… of a Circular Firing Squad?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not only under tremendous economic strain but may also be having a monumental crisis of leadership. Jan Jekielek, senior editor with the Epoch Times, is uniquely positioned to explain why the Chinese Communist Party may be entering its most dangerous and unstable phase yet—not because of outside pressure, but because stability of the system at the very top is in question.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the U.S. and the world?
Pre-Order Jan Jekielek’s new book about forced organ harvesting, KILLED TO ORDER
Recent purges at the very top of China’s military leadership reveal deep cracks in a regime built on communism, deception, fear, and the worst impulses of human nature, which includes organ harvesting by the way. According to China analyst Heng He, the CCP’s unwritten rules—the mafia-like understandings that once kept elites in line—may be collapsing. Loyalty no longer protects anyone. Even those closest to Xi Jinping are expendable.
The removal of top Generals there means that five of the seven members of China’s Central Military Commission have now been purged or sidelined. Only two remain, one of them being Xi himself. Most striking is Zhang Youxia’s fall: a longtime ally of Xi, and one of the last senior generals with real battlefield experience. His purge sends a chilling signal through the ranks—obedience offers no safety.
Heng He’s assessment is blunt: military leaders inside the CCP no longer know to whom they should be loyal. The chain of command, the backbone of any armed force, is effectively broken. This is unprecedented in the history of communist rule and points toward a potential implosion rather than consolidation of power.
Jekielek can unpack why this moment is so dangerous. The Chinese military is not designed to fight foreign wars; it exists primarily to protect the Communist Party itself. Yet the party’s leaders deeply distrust the very military they rely on for survival, fearing it could “turn the gun the wrong way.” That fear is now colliding with Xi Jinping’s lifelong ambition to take Taiwan—a goal that requires giving real authority to generals he no longer trusts.
By purging Zhang Youxia, who reportedly opposed an invasion of Taiwan, Xi may have removed an obstacle—but at enormous cost. He has eliminated experienced commanders, shattered trust, and left behind a military leadership paralyzed by uncertainty and fear.
This analysis dovetails with the themes of Jekielek’s upcoming book, Killed to Order, which exposes how the CCP’s moral collapse—most horrifyingly through state-sanctioned organ harvesting of innocent people, particularly Falun Gong practitioners—has always been inseparable from its political decay.
The message is clear: a system built on lies and terror cannot sustain itself forever. And now, the CCP’s greatest threat may be the one it created itself.
Relevant Article(s):
Power Vacuum China: When Military Purges Create Instability
OPTIONAL Q&A:
- How unprecedented is it for the CCP to purge this many top military leaders at once, and what does it signal about the regime’s internal stability?
- To what extent is the economic situation in China contributing to all the dysfunction at the top of the CCP’s military leadership?
- If even longtime allies of Xi Jinping like Zhang Youxia are no longer safe, what does that do to loyalty and decision-making inside China’s military?
- Heng He says the CCP’s “hidden rules” are broken—why were those unwritten rules so critical to the regime’s survival in the first place?
- What happens to a military when its leaders no longer know whom they are supposed to be loyal to?
- How does this breakdown in trust affect Xi Jinping’s ability to pursue his stated goal of taking Taiwan?
- Is the CCP more afraid of losing control of the military than it is of foreign adversaries?
- You’ve described the CCP as a system built on lies and coercion—are we now seeing the natural endgame of that system?
- How do these power struggles at the top connect to the moral collapse you document in Killed to Order, particularly the regime’s willingness to sacrifice innocent lives?
Pre-Order Jan Jekielek’s new book about forced organ harvesting, KILLED TO ORDER
Senior Epoch Times Reporter Nan Su and Investigative Reporter Joshua Philipp is an alternative guest on this topic.
https://youtu.be/KuNq-CiuO9M?si=YtDgYuTiSpcNOI3q
ABOUT JAN JEKIELEK…
Jan Jekielek is senior editor with The Epoch Times, host of the show “American Thought Leaders” and was co-host of “FALLOUT” with Dr. Robert Malone and “Kash’s Corner” with now FBI Director Kash Patel. Years ago Jan studied the evolutionary biology of lemurs in Madagascar, and his life took an unexpected turn. Exposed to the realities of human rights violations in China, he ended up working with an underground railroad bringing Chinese dissidents through the Golden Triangle to Bangkok and ultimately to Western countries. It was then that he realized that telling unknown heroes’ stories was transformative, both for him and audiences.
Determined to tell true stories, Jan started working with The Epoch Times 20 years ago, at a time when popular narratives in the West hid the dark underbelly of communist China. He did some of the earliest reporting on the Chinese regime’s continuing practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, and he’s the author of the upcoming book, “Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary.”
Over the last five years, he has interviewed over a thousand thought leaders on camera, including heads of state, multiple U.S. cabinet secretaries and agency heads, and congressional members.
Jan specializes in long-form discussions that challenge assumptions. He’s also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producing “DeSantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns,” “The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told,” and the “optimistic” Holocaust documentary “Finding Manny.”
ABOUT NAN SU…
Nan Su is currently a Senior Reporter for the Epoch Times, a New York-based newspaper published in 36 countries and 22 languages. Mr. Su’s focus has been subjects related to China.
Born and raised in China, Mr. Nan Su came to the United States in 1989. Since 2003, he has served as a news commentator for the SOH International Chinese Radio Network and NTD International TV Network, focusing on news related to China. Over the past two decades, Mr. Su has delivered numerous speeches at public events on a wide range of China-related topics.
As an expert on China, Mr. Su’s work has covered extensively on subjects such as the threat of CCP’s global expansion, the security of Taiwan and Taiwan Strait, CCP’s human rights abuses in China, China’s economy, traditional Chinese culture before communism, forced organ harvesting in China, and the struggle for freedom in Hong Kong.
ABOUT JOSHUA PHILIPP…
Joshua Philipp is an award-winning journalist and Senior Investigative Reporter at The Epoch Times. He is the host of ‘Crossroads,’ a news and analysis program on EpochTV. His works have included breakthrough investigations into the origins of Covid-19 and the Wuhan laboratory in the early days of the pandemic. He spearheaded the first documentary on the lab leak origins of the COVID-19 virus, released in April 2020. This groundbreaking documentary garnered over 75 million views, and while many tried to label it misinformation, its findings have since been vindicated by the White House and US intelligence agencies.
TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW WITH JEKIELEK, CALL OR TEXT 512-966-0983 OR EMAIL BOOKINGS@SPECIALGUESTS.COM
X: Todd Baumann (@ToddPodSquad) / X
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