China's People's Liberation Army Daily (Jiefangjun Bao) repeatedly says artificial intelligence can support but not replace human commanders. The newspaper reported that, in 2025, 153 of roughly 57,000 articles on AI and command explicitly affirmed that a human retains final decision authority, up from 45 in 2018, a three‑fold increase. Overall AI coverage rose from 967 articles in 2018 to 2,513 in 2025.

On January 24, 2026, the Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, chief of the Joint Staff Department, were under investigation for serious disciplinary and legal violations. Their removal leaves only two of the six commission members appointed by President Xi Jinping in 2022 on the commission, and the chief of the Joint Staff Department position, responsible for operational planning, has remained vacant since the Cultural Revolution.

The purges and the military's growing emphasis on AI are described as related developments. Analysts note that the commission's composition reflects Xi's reliance on political reliability over operational experience, with many key posts filled by acting or provisional appointments. Procurement data show China is deploying AI in targeting, cyber operations, undersea tracking and decision support, but the newspaper's discourse continues to stress the indispensable role of experienced human commanders.

Experts suggest the AI shift may aim to compensate for a weakened officer corps, yet the institution has not publicly linked the removal of senior officers to data quality concerns that could affect AI training. The absence of discussion on how political pressure to report inflated readiness could corrupt the data feeding AI systems remains a gap in the public record.