储百亮2025年8月11日北京军事博物馆展出的中国领导人习近平肖像。习近平设定了2027年实现中国人民解放军现代化的目标。 Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesOutwardly, China’s military has never been stronger. Its naval ships venture farther across the oceans. Its nuclear force grows by about 100 warheads every year. Its military flights around Taiwan are increasingly frequent and intimidating. Every few months, China unveils new weapons, like a prototype stealth fighter or newfangled landing barges.表面上，中国的军力从未如此强大。海军舰艇驶向更遥远的海域；核武库每年增加约100枚弹头；在台湾周边的军事飞行越来越频繁，威慑性也日益增强。每隔几个月，中国都会推出新的武器，例如隐形战斗机原型机或新型登陆驳船。Internally, though, China’s military is experiencing its most serious leadership disarray in years. Three of the seven seats on the Central Military Commission — the Communist Party council that controls the armed forces — appear to be vacant after members were arrested or simply disappeared.然而，在内部，中国军队正经历多年来最严重的领导层混乱。控制武装力量的中共机构中央军委的七个席位中，因为一些委员被捕或干脆消失不见，有三个似乎处于空缺状态。That internal turbulence is testing the effort by President Xi Jinping, going back more than a decade, to build a military that is loyal, modern, combat-ready and fully under his control. Mr. Xi has set a 2027 target for modernizing the People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., and also — according to some U.S. officials — for gaining the ability to invade Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.十多年来，习近平一直致力于打造一支忠诚、现代化、能打仗，且完全听命于他的军队，现在这场内部动荡正考验着他的这一努力。习近平设定了到2027年实现解放军现代化的目标，据一些美国官员称，这一年也是做好侵台准备的期限，北京方面声称台湾是其领土。The current wave of investigations and removals has reached some commanders handpicked by Mr. Xi, suggesting recurrent problems in a system that he has tried for years to clean up. In the first years after Mr. Xi came to power in 2012, he launched an intense campaign to clean up corruption in the military and impose tighter control, culminating in a big reorganization.目前这一轮调查与革职已波及一些由习近平亲自挑选的指挥官，这表明他多年来试图整肃的体制内仍在反复出现问题。在2012年上台后的最初几年，习近平在军队发起了一场强力的反腐运动，对军队实施更严格的控制，并最终进行了大洗牌。“When Xi Jinping sees his own men making mistakes, he is likely to be especially furious,” Joseph Torigian, an associate professor at American University who has studied Chinese leaders’ relations with the military, said of Mr. Xi. “Control over the military is so existential. It’s inherently explosive. That’s why any sense of stepping out of line has to be crushed.”“当习近平看到自己的人犯错时，他很可能会格外恼怒，”美国大学副教授、研究中国领导人与军方关系的唐志学(Joseph Torigian)说，习近平“对军队的控制事关生死，它本身就具有爆炸性。这就是为什么任何越界的迹象都必须被碾碎”。上个月，中国首艘国产航空母舰山东舰停靠香港，战斗机停放在飞行甲板上。两艘中国航母最近在太平洋进行了演习。The most jarring absence in the military leadership is that of Gen. He Weidong. The second most-senior career officer on the Central Military Commission, General He has disappeared from official public events and mentions, an unexplained absence that suggests he, too, is in trouble and may be under investigation.军方领导层中最引人注目的缺席者是何卫东上将。作为中央军委排名第二的官员，何卫东已从官方公开活动和报道中消失，这种毫无解释的缺席表明他可能也陷入了麻烦，并可能正在接受调查。Another top commander, Adm. Miao Hua, who oversaw political work in the military, was placed under investigation last year for unspecified “serious violations of discipline,” a phrase that often refers to corruption or disloyalty. He was among around two dozen, if not more, senior P.L.A. officers and executives in the armaments industry who have been investigated since 2023, according to a recent tally by the Jamestown Foundation.另一位高级指挥官、负责军队政治工作的苗华上将去年因未具体说明的“严重违纪”行为接受调查——这一措辞通常指腐败或不忠。据詹姆斯敦基金会的最新统计，自2023年以来，已有约20多名甚至更多高级解放军军官和军工行业高管被调查，苗华是其中之一。Both men had risen unusually quickly under Mr. Xi’s patronage. While Chinese officials are vulnerable to investigations for corruption or disloyalty even in the best of times, for him to lose them both reveals an uncommon degree of top-level upheaval.何卫东和苗华都是在习近平的提携下迅速晋升的。虽然中国官员即便在最为平稳的时期，也容易因腐败或不忠而遭到调查，但习近平同时失去这两个人还是显示出高层动荡的程度不同寻常。“The purges may have affected the working of the bureaucracy. It can also create a broader skepticism about the readiness of the Chinese military within the leadership,” said Ely Ratner, who had been an assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration.“清洗可能已经影响到官僚体系的运作，也可能在领导层内部引发对中国军队战备能力的更广泛怀疑，”曾在拜登政府担任助理国防部长的伊利·拉特纳说。Mr. Xi’s ultimate fears for the Chinese military come from questions of battlefield preparedness, and anxieties that commanders could drift away from absolute loyalty to him and the party. Mr. Xi may seek a fourth term as leader of the Communist Party in 2027, and he will need to replace retiring or purged commanders with a new cohort whose devotion to him is beyond question.习近平对中国军队的终极担忧来自战场准备方面的问题，以及将领可能会偏离对他和党的绝对忠诚。习近平可能会在2027年寻求中共领导人的第四个任期，他需要用一批对他绝对忠诚的新军官来替换退休或被清洗的人。2023年，何卫东上将（左）在北京出席政协会议。Recent official statements point to a renewed drive to reinforce ideological control. The Central Military Commission issued new rules last month aimed at “fully eliminating toxic influences, and restoring the image and authority of political officers.” A series of front-page commentaries in the Liberation Army Daily — the main newspaper of the Chinese military — urged P.L.A. political officers to observe absolute loyalty.最近的官方表态表明，当局正在重新加强意识形态管控。中央军委上个月出台新规定，旨在“全面肃清流毒影响，重塑政治干部形象”。中国军方的主要报纸《解放军报》连续在头版发表评论文章，敦促解放军政治干部恪守绝对忠诚。Since Mao Zedong’s era, the military has served not only as a fighting force but also as a lever of political control for Chinese leaders, as their ultimate protection against potential rivals or popular uprisings. In internal speeches to the military throughout the earlier years in his rule, Mr. Xi praised the army for standing by party leaders during the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests, according to a volume of his speeches to the military published in 2019.自毛泽东时代以来，军队不仅是作战力量，也是中国领导人进行政治控制的杠杆，是他们防范潜在对手或民众造反的终极保障。据2019年出版的习近平对军队讲话的汇编，在上台初期面向军队的内部讲话中，他赞扬军队在1989年镇压支持民主的抗议活动时与党的领导人站在一起。But in such speeches, Mr. Xi has also repeatedly cited the lessons of Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, the two most senior former P.L.A. commanders who were arrested for corruption nearly a decade ago. If the rot in the Chinese military elite had been left to spread, “our forces would have become a private army under certain people, an armed force turning against the party,” Mr. Xi told a Central Military Commission meeting in 2018.但在这些讲话中，习近平也反复提到徐才厚和郭伯雄的教训——这两位军队最高层领导人近十年前因腐败被捕。习近平在2018年的一次中央军委会议上说，如果任由军队高层腐败蔓延，“我们的军队就会变成某些人麾下的私人军队，变成一支反党的武装力量”。There are no signs that the recent turbulence in the military amounts to concerted defiance of Mr. Xi. But even relatively few cases of corruption or mismanagement could erode the trust between Mr. Xi and his commanders, said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington who studies China’s military.目前没有迹象表明军队的近期动荡构成了对习近平的有组织抵抗。但在华盛顿的国防大学研究中国军队的高级研究员吴志远(Joel Wuthnow)表示，哪怕是相对较少的腐败或管理不善案件也可能削弱习近平与军官之间的信任。Mr. Xi is the only civilian party leader who sits on the Central Military Commission, which ensures his singular power over the military. That also means that he cannot turn to other civilian officials to help him.习近平是中央军委中唯一的文职党领导人，这确保了他对军队的独有权力。这也意味着他不能依靠其他文职官员的协助。2019年，苗华抵达朝鲜平壤机场。“Xi would have to rely on commanders to develop options and implement them based on a huge amount of information and technical skills,” Professor Wuthnow said. “If he’s unable to verify that those people are honest, professional and competent, then I think his appetite for war goes down because: How can he be sure of the outcome?”“习近平必须依靠指挥官来制定方案，并在大量信息和技术能力的基础上加以执行，”吴志远教授说。“如果他无法确认这些人诚实、专业且能力过硬，那么我认为他的战争意愿会下降，因为——他怎么能确定战争结果呢？”The purges are likely to disrupt coordination, weaken confidence in commanders and prompt Beijing to be more wary of considering an amphibious assault on Taiwan, M. Taylor Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs.麻省理工学院教授傅泰林(M.Taylor Fravel)近期在《外交事务》上写道，这些清洗很可能会扰乱协调、削弱对指挥官的信心，让北京在考虑对台湾发动水陆两栖进攻时更加谨慎。“The high intensity kinds of operations that would be involved in an invasion of Taiwan, or a blockade of Taiwan — pretty much anything that would happen under the shadow of U.S. involvement — I think will be impacted for a period of time by these problems,” Professor Fravel said in a telephone interview.“几乎任何在美国介入阴影下进行的高强度行动——无论是入侵台湾，还是封锁台湾——我认为都会在一段时间内受到这些问题的影响，”傅泰林教授在接受电话采访时说。But the need to act strongly in a crisis against foes might override any doubts about combat readiness, Professor Fravel said. If Mr. Xi felt that a war on Taiwan was necessary, he would most likely not hesitate to send his armed forces into battle, whatever the gaps in the top command, Professor Fravel said.但他表示，在危机中对敌人采取强硬行动的需要可能会压过对战备的疑虑。如果习近平认为有必要对台湾开战，他很可能会毫不犹豫地派出武装力量投入战斗，不管高层指挥存在什么样的空缺。台湾军方也一直在举行演习，例如2023年的反登陆演习。As if to make that point about resolve, Mr. Xi has pushed China’s forces to perform increasingly demanding operations, such as the recent exercises by two aircraft carriers and accompanying warships in the western Pacific. An intercontinental missile test that arced over the Pacific last year appeared partly intended to send a similar message of resolve. “There is no detectable delay or scaling back,” in Chinese naval operations, said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.似乎是为了彰显这种决心，习近平推动中国军队进行了难度越来越大的行动，例如最近两艘航母及其护卫舰在西太平洋进行的演习。去年一次飞越太平洋的洲际导弹试射似乎也部分是为了传递类似的决心。在中国海军行动中，“没有任何可察觉的延迟或缩减”，美国海军军事学院教授艾立信(Andrew S. Erickson)说。Next month, Mr. Xi will preside over a military parade in Beijing to showcase China’s forces and his authority over them, when the party commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which China celebrates as its victory over Japanese conquest.下个月，在中共纪念“二战”结束80周年（中国称之为抗日战争胜利）之际，习近平将在北京主持一场阅兵，以展示中国军力及其对军队的掌控。In the lead-up to the parade, the Chinese state broadcaster released a new documentary series called “Storming the Fort” that depicted the armed forces as primed for combat. “When the party tells you to do something, you sure do it,” an infantry officer says.为配合阅兵，中国官方电视台推出了一部名为《攻坚》的系列纪录片，展现了军队蓄势待发的战斗姿态。“党叫干什么就坚决干什么，”一名步兵军官在片中说。储百亮(Chris Buckley)是《纽约时报》首席中国记者，自台北报道中国和台湾问题，重点关注政治、社会变革以及安全和军事问题。点击查看更多关于他的信息。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。