China watchers are trying to spot the next target of Xi’s purges

Official newspaper editorials have condemned Gen. Zhang Youxia for allegedly undermining Xi’s authority, abetting corruption and damaging efforts to develop China’s combat effectiveness. Some analysts wondered if the two men had disagreed over policy, while others theorized that Xi wanted to eliminate a perceived threat.

Some sleuths have resorted to studying body language as they try to pierce the veil of secrecy. They pointed to footage showing Zhang facing away from Xi as the leader walked past after a legislative session last year, to speculate about souring ties between the men.

Xi’s motives for ejecting Zhang may never be definitively known. But that hasn’t stopped foreign academics, officials and business executives from trying to find out—and some are turning to arcane tea leaf-reading techniques dating back to the era of Mao Zedong.

“Pekingology,” as this Chinese analog of Kremlinology is known, often involves poring over official speeches, documents and state-media coverage in a bid to divine insights from language, behavior and deviations from the norm.

The party was already highly secretive before Xi took power in 2012, but his tilt toward autocratic rule has made Chinese politics even more opaque and sparked a resurgence in Pekingology.

Some have waded through turgid Communist Party documents in search of subtle shifts in tone and vocabulary. Others have tracked attendance at political gatherings, parsing changes in seating arrangements or unexplained absences that can signal a disturbance in an official’s career trajectory.

Pekingology is fraught with limitations. A dearth of reliable data makes it hard to test theories or to reach definitive conclusions. It can take an official announcement—of a purge, promotion or policy shift—to validate a hypothesis.

He Weidong

Some Pekingologists say clues pointing to the downfall of He Weidong, who was China’s No. 2 general, were hiding in plain sight even before the party announced his expulsion in October.

When He started missing public events after appearing at China’s annual legislative session in March last year, rumors swirled about a possible probe into the general, who was a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a Politburo member.

At the time, Beijing was in the midst of a fierce crackdown on military corruption. One of He’s closest allies, Adm. Miao Hua, had already come under investigation in November 2024 for alleged disciplinary violations.

In April 2025, He missed an annual tree-planting event that typically involved all active uniformed officers on the Central Military Commission. State media footage had shown He attending the same event in 2023 and 2024 after joining the commission in late 2022.

Unexplained absences can be an early sign of political trouble in China, though officials are known to have missed engagements for innocuous reasons such as illness. Missing multiple events, however, is considered a red flag.

When Xi convened a party conference days later, He was the only Politburo member who didn’t attend.

At major Communist Party and government meetings, participants follow strict seating protocols that place attendees based on their rank, the seniority of the institutions they represent and other criteria.

The most senior official is typically seated front and center, with lower-ranking officials distributed to the sides and back. Officials with the same rank are sorted by how their names are written—starting with the number of strokes in their surname, in ascending order.

Seating shifts can indicate changes in rank or appointments, while no-shows raise questions.

Speculation around He’s fate intensified after he missed more high-profile gatherings, notably Politburo study sessions in April, June and September.

Another suggestion that He’s career had entered its terminal phase came when a former top general died in June.

In China, the deaths of senior officials and other public luminaries provide opportunities for Pekingologists to find proof of life—both politically and literally. When nationally prominent figures die, members of China’s top leadership and retired party grandees send wreaths and, in certain cases, personally attend the funerals.

When this happens, state television typically shows Xi and his top lieutenants paying respects to the deceased. Such footage would also show wreaths sent by senior party and state officials, arranged in a carefully prescribed order.

At the June funeral of Gen. Xu Qiliang, a retired vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the absence of He Weidong’s name on the wreaths was a clue. By protocol, He’s name should have appeared after Li Hongzhong’s and was again missing at another high-profile funeral days later.

Circumstances can prevent an official from sending condolences, including death or a fall into political disgrace. During the final years of retired top leader Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022, some Pekingologists scrutinized wreaths at other funerals for Jiang’s name.

The party finally announced He’s downfall in October last year, when he and eight other senior military officers were expelled from the party and the armed forces for alleged misconduct.

Ma Xingrui

Lately, Pekingologists have turned their attention to the unusually prolonged absence of another Politburo member, Ma Xingrui.

Speculation has swirled over Ma’s political fortunes since he was removed as party secretary of the far western region of Xinjiang in July 2025. At the time, the party said it had other assignments for Ma, without elaborating.

Ma’s last disclosed appearance was at a plenary meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in October. Since then, he has missed a series of high-level events, including Politburo study sessions and other major political gatherings.

Pekingologists, who conduct “biographical analysis” aimed at mapping out likely ties between officials, have noted that a number of people who once worked closely with Ma have been placed under investigation.

Beijing hasn’t indicated that Ma is facing political trouble. Some officials in the past have re-emerged after unusual absences, defying speculation of their downfall.

The Communist Party’s Propaganda Department didn’t respond to a request for comment and to relay questions to Ma.

Zhang Youxia

In contrast, the ouster of Zhang unfolded so quickly that outside observers had few tea leaves to read before Beijing confirmed his fate.

Unlike He, whose downfall was announced roughly seven months after his last public appearance, Zhang was out of public view for less than two weeks before Beijing said he was under investigation.

His most recent publicly disclosed engagement was at a January policy-setting meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s top disciplinary agency. He was in the audience when Xi delivered a speech to the CCDI on Jan. 12, according to footage from state TV.

The first public indication of trouble came on Jan. 20, when Zhang didn’t appear at the opening ceremony of a special seminar for senior officials in Beijing—even though he had attended similar seminars in the past. Chinese-speaking communities on Western social-media platforms lighted up with rumors that Zhang had been purged.

Then on Jan. 24, China’s Defense Ministry said Zhang was under investigation for allegedly committing severe violations of party discipline and state laws.

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com and Roque Ruiz at roque.ruizgonzalez@wsj.com