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Japan Times
an hour ago
- Japan Times
Xi looks to tighten grip after scandals shake China's military elite
Outwardly, China's military has never been stronger. Its naval ships venture farther across the oceans. Its nuclear force grows by about 100 warheads every year. Its military flights around Taiwan are increasingly frequent and intimidating. Every few months, China unveils new weapons, like a prototype stealth fighter or newfangled landing barges. Internally, though, China's military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission — the Communist Party council that controls the armed forces — appear to be vacant after members were arrested or simply disappeared. That internal turbulence is testing President Xi Jinping's effort, going back more than a decade, to build a military that is loyal, modern, combat-ready and fully under his control. Xi has set a 2027 target for modernizing the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, and also — according to some U.S. officials — for gaining the ability to invade Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. The current wave of investigations and removals has reached some commanders handpicked by Xi, suggesting recurrent problems in a system that he has tried for years to clean up. In the first years after Xi came to power in 2012, he launched an intense campaign to clean up corruption in the military and impose tighter control, culminating in a big reorganization. "When Xi Jinping sees his own men making mistakes, he is likely to be especially furious,' Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University who has studied Chinese leaders' relations with the military, said of Xi. "Control over the military is so existential. It's inherently explosive. That's why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed.' The most jarring absence in the military leadership is that of Gen. He Weidong. The second most-senior career officer on the Central Military Commission, He has disappeared from official public events and mentions — an unexplained absence that suggests he, too, is in trouble and may be under investigation. Another top commander, Adm. Miao Hua, who oversaw political work in the military, was placed under investigation last year for unspecified "serious violations of discipline,' a phrase that often refers to corruption or disloyalty. He was among around two dozen, if not more, senior PLA officers and executives in the armaments industry who have been investigated since 2023, according to a recent tally by the Jamestown Foundation. Chinese President Xi Jinping gestures during the opening remarks of the 25th European Union-China Summit at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July 24. | REUTERS Both men had risen unusually quickly under Xi's patronage. While Chinese officials are vulnerable to investigations for corruption or disloyalty even in the best of times, for him to lose them both reveals an uncommon degree of top-level upheaval. "The purges may have affected the working of the bureaucracy. It can also create a broader skepticism about the readiness of the Chinese military within the leadership,' said Ely Ratner, who had been an assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration. Xi's ultimate fears for the Chinese military come from questions of battlefield preparedness, and anxieties that commanders could drift away from absolute loyalty to him and the party. Xi may seek a fourth term as leader of the Communist Party in 2027, and he will need to replace retiring or purged commanders with a new cohort whose devotion to him is beyond question. Recent official statements point to a renewed drive to reinforce ideological control. The Central Military Commission issued new rules last month aimed at "fully eliminating toxic influences, and restoring the image and authority of political officers.' A series of front-page commentaries in the Liberation Army Daily — the main newspaper of the Chinese military — urged PLA political officers to observe absolute loyalty. Since Mao Zedong's era, the military has served not only as a fighting force but also as a lever of political control for Chinese leaders, as their ultimate protection against potential rivals or popular uprisings. In internal speeches to the military throughout the earlier years in his rule, Xi praised the army for standing by party leaders during the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests, according to a volume of his speeches to the military published in 2019. But in such speeches, Xi has also repeatedly cited the lessons of Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, the two most senior former PLA commanders who were arrested for corruption nearly a decade ago. If the rot in the Chinese military elite had been left to spread, "our forces would have become a private army under certain people, an armed force turning against the party,' Xi told a Central Military Commission meeting in 2018. There are no signs that the recent turbulence in the military amounts to concerted defiance of Xi. But even relatively few cases of corruption or mismanagement could erode the trust between Xi and his commanders, said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington who studies China's military. Xi is the only civilian party leader who sits on the Central Military Commission, which ensures his singular power over the military. That also means that he cannot turn to other civilian officials to help him. "Xi would have to rely on commanders to develop options and implement them based on a huge amount of information and technical skills,' Wuthnow said. "If he's unable to verify that those people are honest, professional and competent, then I think his appetite for war goes down because: How can he be sure of the outcome?' An anti-landing drill — part of the Han Kuang military exercise in Bali in Taiwan on July 27, 2023 | Lam Yik Fei / The New York Times The purges are likely to disrupt coordination, weaken confidence in commanders and prompt Beijing to be more wary of considering an amphibious assault on Taiwan, M. Taylor Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. "The high intensity kinds of operations that would be involved in an invasion of Taiwan, or a blockade of Taiwan — pretty much anything that would happen under the shadow of U.S. involvement — I think will be impacted for a period of time by these problems,' Fravel said in a telephone interview. But the need to act strongly in a crisis against foes might override any doubts about combat readiness, Fravel said. If Xi felt that a war on Taiwan was necessary, he would most likely not hesitate to send his armed forces into battle, whatever the gaps in the top command, Fravel said. As if to make that point about resolve, Xi has pushed China's forces to perform increasingly demanding operations, such as the recent exercises by two aircraft carriers and accompanying warships in the western Pacific. An intercontinental missile test that arced over the Pacific last year appeared partly intended to send a similar message of resolve. "There is no detectable delay or scaling back,' in Chinese naval operations, said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Next month, Xi will preside over a military parade in Beijing to showcase China's forces and his authority over them, when the party commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which China celebrates as its victory over Japanese conquest. In the lead-up to the parade, the Chinese state broadcaster released a new documentary series called "Storming the Fort' that depicted the armed forces as primed for combat. "When the party tells you to do something, you sure do it,' an infantry officer says. This article originally appeared in The New York Times © 2025 The New York Times Company
Japan Times
4 hours ago
- Japan Times
Komeito struggling after crushing Upper House election defeat
Komeito, which has been part of Japan's ruling coalition for years, is struggling, especially following its crushing defeat in last month's election for the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of parliament. There are even calls for the party to give up on fielding candidates in constituencies and instead focus on the proportional representation system. Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito pledged to promote reform to rebuild the party in a meeting with local chapter representatives on Aug. 1 to review the results of the Upper House election.
Japan Times
4 hours ago
- Japan Times
How a CIA hit on al Qaeda ensnared a U.S. citizen in Afghanistan
As a crowd looked on, uniformed Taliban surrounded the Toyota Landcruiser in which Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, sat. Other Taliban smashed open the door of his Kabul apartment, emerging later with his laptop and papers. Blindfolded in the back seat, Habibi and his driver were driven off by gunmen sporting shoulder patches of the Taliban's feared secret police, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), according to several witness statements in U.S. government possession. Afghanistan's Taliban government denies it detained Habibi, 37, who was a former head of Afghanistan's civil aviation. While dividing his time between the United States and Kabul working for a private company, he became a U.S. citizen after the Taliban took power in 2021. The Taliban also says they have no knowledge of his whereabouts, three years after he disappeared. That is contradicted by the witness accounts and other evidence, including data monitored from Habibi's cellphone, described by a U.S. official and a former U.S. official familiar with the matter. The Taliban denials present a conundrum for the FBI, which is leading the U.S. government effort to gain his release; and for the State Department, which describes Habibi's detention a major impediment to exploring increased engagement with Afghanistan, three years after his August 10, 2022 arrest. U.S. President Donald Trump has made freeing Americans held abroad a top priority and already has secured the release of dozens, including from Afghanistan, Russia and Venezuela. The case of Habibi — the only publicly identified American held in the country — has been harder to resolve. Interviews with the U.S. official and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case reveal that the Taliban likely detained Habibi because the CIA had penetrated the company where he worked. The sources say the U.S. spy agency had accessed one of the company's security cameras, helping it pinpoint the al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul guesthouse. Habibi's detention came 10 days after Zawahiri — the last of the top plotters of the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States — was dramatically assassinated by a U.S. drone strike on the guesthouse, ordered by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden. At the time, U.S. officials briefed journalists that it was a CIA operation. The U.S. sources said that Habibi was unaware of the CIA plot and was wrongly detained after returning to Kabul from a work trip to Dubai after the assassination, oblivious of the danger he was in. A Taliban official hands out bags of cucumbers to Afghan refugees returning from Iran, at a reception center in the border town of Islam Qala, Afghanistan, on July 10. | Jim Huylebroek / The New York Times The CIA, the Taliban, the White House and Habibi's employer, Virginia-based ARX Communications, did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this story. ARX has previously said neither it, nor its subsidiaries, were involved with the strike on Zawahiri. It could not be independently verified whether Habibi was or wasn't aware of the plot. In a statement, a State Department spokesperson called for Habibi's immediate release. "We know the Taliban abducted Mahmood Habibi nearly three years ago," the spokesperson said. A co-worker detained with Habibi, then later released, saw him in GDI headquarters and heard him in an adjacent room being asked if he worked for the CIA or was involved in the strike on Zawahiri, according to one of the statements in U.S government possession. Then, in June and August of 2023, the U.S. government detected that his mobile phone had been switched on in GDI headquarters, the U.S. official and former official said. The U.S. official familiar with the matter said excerpts of the statements have been presented to the Taliban in response to their repeated denials of Habibi's detention. As Habibi and his family on Sunday mark the third anniversary of his arrest, the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to win his release, including offering a $5 million reward for information. But so far, he appears no closer to freedom, the U.S. sources said. "Our family has new hope that the Trump team will be successful," said Habibi's older brother, Ahmad. Ahmad said his brother would never have gone to Kabul four days after the Zawahiri assassination if the CIA had told ARX to warn him it was too dangerous to return. "Nobody told him anything. Neither the company, neither the CIA nor anybody. So, he just went back,' Ahmad said. The U.S. government officially considers Habibi a hostage, said the U.S. official, because his arrest and location remain unconfirmed by the Taliban. The official and the former official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the case. In response to a request for comment, the FBI said that along with partners in other U.S. departments involved in hostage recovery, it remains "committed to bringing Habibi home to his family." The Taliban rejected an offer made last year to trade Habibi for alleged Osama bin Laden aide Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani, the last Afghan held in the Guantanamo Bay military prison. "We've tried in terms of both carrots and sticks,' said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the case. The Taliban "literally throw up a wall," said the official. Camera on cell tower As part of the operation against Zawahiri, the CIA penetrated the Asia Consultancy Group (ACG), a subsidiary of ARX, according to the current and former U.S. officials, who provided details of how the spy agency was able to target the al Qaeda chief. ACG, whose parent is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, had a contract to erect cellphone towers around Kabul, the sources said. CCTV cameras were fitted to the towers to protect the structures, they said. Mahmood Habibi and his older brother Ahmad Habibi during a visit to Toronto in 2014 | Ahmad Shah Habibi / via REUTERS One of the cameras, the sources said, was pointed at a house U.S. officials have linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's acting interior minister both at the time and now, in the heart of Kabul's diplomatic quarter, a short distance from the shuttered British and American embassies. The sources said the camera sent back video to the CIA confirming Zawahiri's presence in the residence. That confirmation helped the agency kill the Egyptian Islamist with two drone-fired Hellfire R9X missiles on July 31, 2022, as he emerged onto a balcony, they said. His wife and family survived the strike. Arrest On the day of his arrest, Mahmood Habibi was in his apartment in Kabul's Sherpur neighborhood packing to return to New Jersey, where he had a home, with the help of a sister, who was there with her two children, according to Ahmad. It was about noon when a phone call came from the ACG office saying it had just been raided by the Taliban, Ahmad said. Habibi told his sister that he had to leave without explaining why. He was arrested immediately after getting into his vehicle, Ahmad said. A few minutes later, somebody announcing that they were with GDI knocked on his apartment door, according to Ahmad and a witness statement. His sister declined to open it, telling those outside that she had to conform to the Taliban rule that an adult male relative had to be present. The Taliban broke open the door, entered the apartment and rifled through closets and drawers, demanding Habibi's laptop, according to Ahmad and the witness statement. A crowd had gathered outside after the Taliban arrived in five vehicles, blocked the street and surrounded Habibi's car, before driving him off, according to Ahmad and a separate witness statement. The GDI arrested 30 other ACG employees, according to a letter that ACG sent to Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications. Except for Habibi and one other, all were eventually released. In the letter, dated September 15, 2022, ACG asked that family members be allowed to visit him and three other staff who the GDI still held. Afghan refugee women tailor a carpet at the Khurasan camp on the outskirts of Peshawar on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI The ministry appeared to confirm Habibi was a GDI prisoner in a reply two days later, saying that the intelligence directorate would decide on the petition when its investigation was completed. However, in a July 3, 2025 statement reported by Afghanistan's state news agency, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that in response to requests from Habibi's family, the Taliban had investigated but no evidence has been found to suggest that he was detained by Afghanistan's security forces. Mujahid said the Taliban are a legitimate governing body that does not detain individuals without due process or hide them from public view. Mujahid did not respond to a request for comment. U.S. citizen Born to parents from the southern city of Kandahar, Habibi is one of eight siblings — three brothers and five sisters — who grew up in the Kabul neighborhood of Karte Parwan. His excellent English helped him secure a job with the U.N. civil aviation agency in Kabul in 2008. He worked for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's U.S. embassy office from 2011 to 2013. Tapped as deputy civil aviation minister, Habibi helped transition Afghanistan's air traffic system from U.S. control to the U.S.-backed Kabul government. Habibi became civil aviation minister in 2017. He held that post until 2019 while earning a civil aviation master's degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, the university confirmed. In 2019, he resigned and then joined ARX to help oversee its Afghan subsidiary's contract to run air traffic control at Kabul's international airport. Habibi lived between the city and the United States, accumulating the last of the 30 months of U.S. residency he needed over a five-year period for U.S. citizenship in 2021, Ahmad said. He was in Kabul with his family during the chaotic departure of the last U.S. troops in August 2021, Ahmad said, as the Taliban consolidated its grip on the capital after 20 years of war. Habibi flew from Dubai to Kabul on August 4, 2022, after stopping in Qatar to check on his family and parents who were housed on a U.S. military base there waiting for final processing of U.S. immigration visas, said Ahmad. A week later Habibi was arrested. His wife, daughter and parents, who waited in Qatar until October for their visas before flying to the United States and settling in California, have not seen or heard from him since. Resolving Habibi's case would be the easiest way for the Taliban, who crave international recognition as Afghanistan's legitimate rulers, to explore improving ties with the U.S., the current U.S. official said. Since Habibi's detention, four other Americans have been arrested and released by the Taliban.
