One was a general who had commanded Chinese forces arrayed against Taiwan. Another was an officer who had led the People’s Liberation Army’s training department and been praised for modernizing combat drills. A third had long served as the chief military aide to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

一位将军曾指挥过针对台湾部署的军队。另一位将军曾领导解放军训练部门，因推动作战训练现代化而备受赞誉。第三位将军则长期担任中国国家主席习近平的首席军事助理。

These men are among dozens of once-rising senior military officers who have been detained, dismissed or simply disappeared from view without explanation over the last four years. Their downfall, documented in a study released Tuesday, reveals the staggering extent of Mr. Xi’s campaign to shake up the People’s Liberation Army, which culminated last month in the removal of the topmost general, Zhang Youxia.

在过去四年中，有数十名一度崛起的高级军官在没有任何解释的情况下被拘留、解职，或干脆从人们的视线中消失，这三人就属其列。周二发布的一份研究报告记录了他们的陨落轨迹，凸显出习近平整顿解放军的运动规模之巨，这场运动在上个月以最高将领张又侠被撤职而达到顶峰。

The purge has stripped the military of its most experienced commanders and raised doubts about its readiness to go to war, including over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, according to data compiled by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or C.S.I.S., a research group in Washington.

根据华盛顿智库战略与国际研究中心研究员汇编的数据，这场清洗行动使得军队失去了最富经验的指挥官，引发外界对其战争准备能力的质疑，包括针对中国宣称是其领土的台湾地区。

“In the near term, given the significant vacancies, it would be incredibly difficult for China to launch large military campaigns against Taiwan,” Bonny Lin, the director of the China Power Project at the center, wrote in an assessment of the findings. “Even below that threshold, there is evidence that the purges have negatively impacted China’s exercises around Taiwan in 2025.”

“短期内，鉴于存在大量空缺，中国发动大规模军事行动攻台将极其困难，”该中心中国力量项目主任林洋(Bonny Lin)在评估报告中指出。“即便降低一些标准，也有证据表明，此次清洗已对2025年中国在台湾周边的军事演习都产生了负面影响。”

Since 2022, around 100 officers in the military’s top two ranks — general or lieutenant general — have been dismissed or sidelined, the study estimated. The tally includes about 11 officers who were purged even after retirement.

据该研究估计，自2022年以来，约有100名军队最高两个级别（上将或中将）的军官被解职或边缘化。其中包括约11名军官在退休后仍被清洗。

Those eliminated represented about half of the military’s senior leadership, spanning the top commanders as well as the leaders and deputy leaders of central departments and all of China’s five military theater regions, said M. Taylor Fravel, a professor and expert on the Chinese military at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who examined the data.

美国麻省理工学院教授、中国军事问题专家傅泰林(M. Taylor Fravel)研究了这些数据，他说，这些被清除的人员约占军队高级领导层的一半，包括最高指挥官、中央部门和中国五大战区的正副领导。

Replacing them will not be easy. The purges have shrunk the pool of candidates who would have the right combination of skills, experience and ironclad loyalty to Mr. Xi and the Communist Party. An officer must also usually have served three to five years in his or her current grade to be considered for promotion, Professor Fravel said.

取代他们并非易事。清洗行动已大幅缩减具备综合素质的候选人储备——这些人才需兼具专业能力、丰富经验及对习近平和中共的绝对忠诚。傅泰林说，军官通常需在现职军衔任职三至五年方有晋升资格。

“Xi has purged all of these people and, obviously, it’s framed as their lack of loyalty to Xi and to the party,” he said in an interview. “But he also needs expertise to have the military he wants — loyalty as well as expertise — and how will he find those people? That’s going to be harder now.”

“习近平已经清洗了所有这些人，表面理由是他们对习近平和党缺乏忠诚，”他在接受采访时说。“但他也需要专业人才来组建他理想中的军队——既要忠诚，也要专业能力——他要如何找到这些人呢？现在这将变得更加困难。”

The removals began as a trickle, with a single senior officer disappearing in 2022. That grew to 14, dismissed or disappeared, in 2023, and 11 more in 2024. By last year the purge was a deluge: About 62 were removed, many in the latter half of the year.

撤职一开始只是零星发生，2022年，仅有一名高级官员消失。2023年，被解职或失踪的官员增至14人，2024年又增加了11人。到去年，这场清洗已如洪水般汹涌：约62人被撤职，其中多数发生在下半年。

This year about 11 officers have been absent from meetings that they would usually be expected to attend, suggesting that at least some of them could also be in serious trouble. The downfall of General Zhang could set off yet more investigations into officers linked to him.

今年，约有11名军官缺席了他们通常应出席的会议，这表明其中至少部分人可能也遇到了严重的麻烦。张又侠的倒台可能引发针对与他关联军官的更多调查。

“You can think of the purge of Zhang Youxia as just completing the first phase, with more turbulence to come,” said Professor Fravel.

傅泰林指出：“可以认为张又侠的清洗仅是第一阶段的收尾，接下来还会有更多的动荡。”

Some of the dismissed or disappeared officers owed their rise to Mr. Xi himself; others were stars whose credentials marked them as the future of the high command.

部分遭撤职或失踪的将领曾受习近平提拔；还有一些是军中明星人物，其资历标志着他们本应成为未来高层。

Among them: Lt. Gen. Wang Peng, who had earned a reputation for modernizing troop training; Lt. Gen. Zhong Shaojun, who had served as Mr. Xi’s chief aide for managing the People’s Liberation Army; and Gen. Lin Xiangyang, the commander who would have been at the forefront of any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

其中包括以部队训练现代化著称的王鹏中将；曾是习近平管理解放军的首席助手的钟绍军中将；以及本应在中国对台军事行动中担任前线指挥官的林向阳上将。

While there are other officers who could fill the vacancies, the wave of removals could have a cascading effect through the ranks. As investigations expand, any promotions will likely be subjected to microscopic scrutiny. Of 52 key military leadership positions examined in the study, only around 11 are officially filled, said Dr. Lin.

虽然还有其他官员可以填补空缺，但免职潮可能在各级军官中引发连锁反应。随着调查范围的扩大，任何晋升都可能面临极其严格的审查。林洋说，在本研究调查的52个重要军事领导职位中，只有约11个是正式的补缺。

In the Chinese military, “for every senior officer, there are tens, if not hundreds, of lower officers whose careers have been tied to the senior officer,” said John Culver, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I think this will ripple for at least two or three years.”

在中国军队中，“每一名高级军官背后都牵动着数十名甚至数百名下级军官的职业生涯，”前中央情报局分析师、现布鲁金斯学会非常驻高级研究员约翰·卡尔弗说。“我认为影响至少会持续两三年。”

So far, the tempo of China’s military modernization does not appear slowed by the purges, but the command bottlenecks may hinder some operations. The researchers at C.S.I.S. noted that China may have decreased, delayed and simplified some military exercises last year, including near Taiwan, because of the loss of skilled leaders.

到目前为止，中国军事现代化的步伐似乎并没有因为大清洗而放缓，但指挥瓶颈可能会阻碍部分行动。战略与国际研究中心研究人员指出，由于资深领导人的流失，中国去年可能减少、推迟和简化了一些军事演习，包括在台湾附近的演习。

Mr. Xi patched some holes in the military leadership late last year, when he promoted new commanders to the Eastern Theater Command, which oversees Taiwan, and the Central Theater Command, which helps protect Beijing. There is no sign yet of when he may install new commanders into the Central Military Commission, the apex body that controls the military.

去年末，习近平通过提拔新指挥官填补了东部战区（负责台湾事务）和中部战区（参与北京守备）的部分领导层空缺。目前还没有迹象表明他何时会为掌控军队的最高机构中央军委任命新的指挥官。