PLA Daily Emphasizes Human Command Authority as Xi Reshapes Military Leadership
The PLA's doctrine and its reality have decoupled. The military's own newspaper insists humans must retain final authority in AI-enabled operations, but Xi has systematically removed the humans he deemed trustworthy enough to hold that authority.
This is not a doctrine problem waiting for resolution — it is a feature of Xi's control strategy. By purging experienced commanders and accelerating AI adoption simultaneously, Xi is creating a system where tactical decisions flow through algorithms that he can theoretically monitor and constrain more easily than human generals with independent operational experience.
Xi faces a control problem: he distrusts his operational commanders enough to purge them, but cannot afford to admit that AI can actually replace human judgment without delegating authority he refuses to cede.
The PLA's escalating rhetoric about human irreplaceability is a cover for a hollowing-out of the command structure — five of six CMC members appointed by Xi in 2022 are now gone, and the position of Joint Staff Department chief (the operational planning nerve center) sits vacant. This forces a choice between two unacceptable outcomes: either admit that AI must now substitute for the experienced commanders he has removed (which cedes real-time tactical authority to algorithms), or staff the CMC with political loyalists who lack operational competence and cannot effectively command a peer conflict. The timing matters: this structural weakness surfaces exactly as the PLA faces expanded operational demands across the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and Pacific contingencies.
Has Xi appointed a new chief of the Joint Staff Department, or is he deliberately keeping the position vacant as a control mechanism? If vacant, how long can the PLA sustain operational planning without a chief at the nerve center during a Taiwan contingency?
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