Chinese President Xi Jinping has decimated the Central Military Commission (CMC) (IO, 01/09/25) and is cleaning up the ranks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) (IO, 17/11/25). But Xu Youming, whose name appears in few public communiqués, remains firmly in command of a particularly sensitive agency: the Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission (JSD-IB). The spymaster has adopted a survival strategy radically opposed to that of his disgraced peers: invisibility
Spymaster | China
Xu Youming, the military intelligence chief who survives purges
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As purges decimate China's military leadership, the head of military intelligence Xu Youming is weathering the storm. The quintessential shadow technocrat, who is unfailingly loyal, is Xi Jinping's indispensable eye on Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
