On June 27, 2025, General Miao Hua of the Chinese Communist Party was relieved of his duties as a member of the Central Military Commission. Miao Hua, who previously served as the Director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, was announced to be under “suspension for inspection” in November last year. In April this year, he was removed from the National People’s Congress as a member and at the end of May, he was taken off the list of members of the Central Military Commission of the Ministry of National Defense. Miao Hua is known to be a close ally of the party leader Xi Jinping, and his downfall is seen by the public as a significant sign of Xi’s tightening grip on the military power.
The 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China announced the dismissal of Miao Hua from his position as a member of the Central Military Commission. The Central Military Commission of the CCP and the National Central Military Commission together form the Central Military Commission, known as the Central Military Commission, and the appointments and removals of its members are confirmed by the Party Congress and the National People’s Congress. In other words, Miao Hua’s party position as a member of the Central Military Commission of the CCP still needs to be dismissed at the central plenary session.
In November last year, the Ministry of National Defense of the CCP announced that Miao Hua was “suspected of serious violations” and placed under “suspension for inspection”. In April this year, Miao Hua was dismissed from the National People’s Congress for alleged “serious violations of laws and disciplines,” indicating that his problem had escalated and he would face penalties.
At the end of May, the official website of the Ministry of National Defense of the CCP, under the section “Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party,” showed that Miao Hua’s information as a member of the Central Military Commission had been removed, indicating that he had been removed from the positions of member of the Central Military Commission of the CCP and Director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission.
Miao Hua, who will turn 70 this year, is native to Jiangsu and was born in Fuzhou, Fujian. He served in the 31st Group Army of the former Nanjing Military Region for a long time. Due to the 31st Group Army being stationed in Fujian, Miao Hua had a professional intersection with Xi Jinping, who served as the Secretary of the Party Committee of Fuzhou Military Subdistrict and the First Political Commissar of the Fujian Provincial Anti-Aircraft Artillery Reserve Brigade during the same period.
Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, Miao Hua’s career has rapidly ascended, transitioning from the army to the navy. He was transferred from the Lanzhou Military Region to serve as the Political Commissar of the Navy. In 2015, Miao Hua was promoted to the rank of General by Xi Jinping and in 2017, he became the Director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission of the CCP, overseeing personnel matters of the entire military. He was then appointed as a member of the Central Military Commission and was re-elected at the 20th National Congress of the CCP. Miao Hua also served as a member of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and a member of the 19th and 20th Central Committees. In March 2018 at the annual “Two Sessions”, Miao Hua was appointed as a member of the National Central Military Commission of the CCP and was re-elected at the “Two Sessions” in March 2023.
Following his downfall, another close ally of Xi Jinping, Vice Chairman of the Military Commission, He Waidong, has also been missing for several months.
The annual Beidaihe Conference may be convened in the near future. Security along the route from Beijing to the coastal town of Beidaihe in Hebei Province has significantly intensified. Multiple sources and visitors revealed that there has been a sudden increase in guard posts along the route, and multiple inspections have been implemented at stations and on trains, indicating that senior CCP officials may have successively moved into the area.
As a close ally of Xi Jinping, Miao Hua’s current situation has drawn widespread attention.
Japanese media analyst, Nakazawa Keiji, recently wrote that in recent years, there have been unexpected developments in personnel changes in the political and military leadership of the CCP, including the downfall of several defense ministers and reports of senior officers being purged. Combined with the unusual lack of coverage by the official CCP media on whether the Political Bureau of the CCP held its routine meeting in May, these various anomalies suggest that there may be issues of stability within Xi Jinping’s regime.