Latest / The President's Daily Brief / PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 21st, 2026: Xi Jinping Purges China’s Military & Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan

Transcript

PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 21st, 2026: Xi Jinping Purges China’s Military & Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan · The President's Daily Brief

• 0:12
  It's Monday,
• 0:13
  the 21st of September.
• 0:14
  Welcome to the PDB
• 0:16
  afternoon bulletin.
• 0:17
  I'm Mike Baker,
• 0:18
  your eyes and ears
• 0:19
  on the world stage.
• 0:21
  Alright,
• 0:21
  let's get briefed.
• 0:23
  First up,
• 0:23
  China's military purge
• 0:25
  is reaching the very top
• 0:27
  with Xi Jinping removing two of the country's most powerful generals.
• 0:31
  I'll have the details.
• 0:32
  Later in the show,
• 0:33
  Pakistan carries out new air strikes inside Afghanistan,
• 0:37
  killing dozens of suspected militants
• 0:40
  as the Taliban warns that there will be a response.
• 0:43
  But first,
• 0:44
  today's afternoon spotlight.
• 0:46
  Xi Jinping has spent more than a decade trying to turn China's military into a force
• 0:51
  capable of fighting and of course winning a modern war,
• 0:55
  but as Beijing races to expand its military power,
• 0:58
  Xi is also tearing apart the senior command structure that he built to lead it.
• 1:04
  Now China today formally expelled two of the
• 1:06
  most powerful generals in the People's Liberation Army,
• 1:09
  the PLA.
• 1:10
  That would be Zhang.
• 1:12
  And Liu Jianli.
• 1:14
  Now Zhang
• 1:15
  was the senior vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission,
• 1:18
  the highest ranking uniformed officer in the country,
• 1:21
  and until recently second only to Xi Jinping himself
• 1:24
  in the military hierarchy.
• 1:26
  Liu
• 1:27
  headed the PLA's Joint Staff Department.
• 1:30
  Now that puts him at the center of operational planning,
• 1:33
  training,
• 1:33
  and coordination between China's different military branches.
• 1:37
  Both men had already been under investigation,
• 1:40
  but today Beijing made their downfall official,
• 1:43
  expelling them from the Communist Party
• 1:45
  and the military and referring their cases
• 1:48
  to military prosecutors.
• 1:50
  And the accusations go well beyond ordinary corruption.
• 1:53
  Chinese authorities accuse the two generals of taking enormous sums of money,
• 1:57
  abusing their positions,
• 1:59
  and helping others win promotions.
• 2:01
  But Beijing also says they formed political cliques and factions
• 2:06
  and were disloyal and dishonest to the Communist Party,
• 2:09
  the CCP.
• 2:11
  Now
• 2:11
  there's no public evidence that either man was plotting against Xi Jinping,
• 2:16
  but the language is striking.
• 2:17
  Because this is no longer simply about officers
• 2:20
  taking bribes or stealing from military procurement accounts,
• 2:24
  Beijing itself is saying there was a political problem
• 2:26
  inside the highest levels of China's military command,
• 2:30
  and Zhang's fall is especially remarkable.
• 2:33
  For years he was viewed as
• 2:35
  one of Xi Jinping's closest military allies.
• 2:38
  Their families reportedly knew each other going back generations,
• 2:41
  and Xi kept Zhang in a senior position
• 2:44
  well beyond the age
• 2:45
  when many Chinese officials normally retire.
• 2:48
  He was also one of the PLA's few
• 2:50
  remaining senior officers with actual combat experience.
• 2:53
  Having served during China's war with Vietnam,
• 2:56
  Liu also had battlefield experience
• 2:59
  and now both are gone.
• 3:01
  But to understand the scale of what's happening,
• 3:03
  you do have to zoom out a bit.
• 3:05
  When Xi assembled the current Central Military commission back in 2022,
• 3:10
  it had seven members,
• 3:12
  including Xi himself.
• 3:14
  Five of those seven have now been purged.
• 3:17
  And the result is extraordinary.
• 3:18
  Xi Jinping has effectively dismantled
• 3:21
  much of the senior military leadership team that he
• 3:24
  personally selected just four years ago.
• 3:27
  And the purge doesn't stop there.
• 3:29
  Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
• 3:32
  have tracked more than 100 senior PLA officers who have either been removed
• 3:37
  or appear to have been caught up in the campaign since
• 3:39
  2022.
• 3:41
  The disruption has reached China's rocket force,
• 3:44
  weapons procurement system,
• 3:46
  theater commands,
• 3:47
  political leadership,
• 3:48
  and the Joint Staff Department.
• 3:50
  The purge is essentially reaching into the institutions that Beijing
• 3:53
  would have to rely on to plan,
• 3:55
  supply,
• 3:56
  and command a major war.
• 3:58
  And that brings us to the point that Washington DC is watching very closely.
• 4:02
  Xi has repeatedly ordered the PLA to improve
• 4:05
  its ability to fight complex joint operations,
• 4:08
  with the year 2027 serving as an important military modernization milestone.
• 4:14
  That date is often misunderstood.
• 4:17
  It's not an announced deadline for China to invade Taiwan,
• 4:21
  but Beijing does want the PLA
• 4:23
  to be much more capable by then.
• 4:26
  The problem is that Xi is now removing many of
• 4:28
  the senior officers responsible for getting the military there.
• 4:32
  Outside analysts say these leadership gaps could create real short-term problems
• 4:37
  for readiness,
• 4:37
  morale,
• 4:38
  and coordination,
• 4:39
  and those problems
• 4:40
  would become especially important
• 4:42
  in any operation against Taiwan.
• 4:45
  An invasion or even a major blockade
• 4:47
  would require enormous coordination between China's navy,
• 4:50
  air force,
• 4:51
  missile forces,
• 4:52
  logistics networks,
• 4:53
  and theater commands.
• 4:55
  China would have to move troops,
• 4:56
  ships,
• 4:57
  aircraft,
• 4:57
  and supplies on a massive scale
• 5:00
  while coordinating strikes and communications
• 5:02
  across multiple military branches,
• 5:04
  and that's exactly
• 5:05
  the kind of operation where experienced leadership matters.
• 5:10
  None of this of course means that China
• 5:11
  has suddenly lost the ability to threaten Taiwan.
• 5:14
  Its military buildup continues.
• 5:16
  Its ships,
• 5:17
  aircraft,
• 5:18
  and
• 5:18
  missile forces are still expanding,
• 5:20
  and Xi may ultimately believe that
• 5:22
  removing corrupt or politically unreliable commanders
• 5:25
  will make the PLA stronger,
• 5:27
  well,
• 5:28
  or more loyal to Xi,
• 5:30
  depending on his real motivation for the purge.
• 5:32
  But there's clearly a trade-off.
• 5:34
  The more officers that Xi removes.
• 5:36
  The more disruption he creates inside the command structure,
• 5:39
  he expects to fight a future war.
• 5:42
  And there's another question here that may be just as important.
• 5:45
  Who is left to tell Xi Jinping something that he
• 5:47
  does not want to hear?
• 5:49
  Zhang was not just a senior general,
• 5:51
  he was one of the most experienced military voices around Xi.
• 5:55
  If senior officers believe that
• 5:57
  falling out of favor can end their careers,
• 6:00
  or worse,
• 6:01
  there's a risk that the information,
• 6:02
  of course,
• 6:03
  reaching the top,
• 6:04
  becomes increasingly filtered.
• 6:06
  All right.
• 6:07
  Coming up next,
• 6:08
  Pakistan launches air strikes inside Afghanistan,
• 6:11
  claiming 28 militants killed
• 6:13
  as Kabul vows a response and tensions between the two countries
• 6:18
  continue to escalate.
• 6:19
  I'll be right back.
• 6:21
  Hey,
• 6:21
  Mike Baker here with a pro tip for feeling your best.
• 6:24
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• 6:24
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• 6:25
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• 8:34
  Welcome back to the PDB
• 8:35
  afternoon bulletin.
• 8:37
  Before dawn today,
• 8:38
  Pakistani fighter jets struck suspected militant hideouts inside Afghanistan,
• 8:42
  escalating several days of deadly attacks inside Pakistan
• 8:46
  into a renewed confrontation between the neighboring countries.
• 8:50
  Islamabad says 28 militants were killed.
• 8:53
  Kabul says the bombs killed 3 civilians,
• 8:55
  and Afghanistan's Taliban government is already promising retaliation.
• 9:00
  If that sequence sounds familiar,
• 9:01
  well,
• 9:02
  it should.
• 9:03
  When I last talked to you about the terrorist attack in Kohat,
• 9:06
  Pakistan on Friday,
• 9:07
  I mentioned the story could quickly move beyond Pakistan
• 9:10
  if Islamabad concluded that the attackers were connected to the Pakistani Taliban
• 9:15
  or allied militants operating from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.
• 9:20
  Well,
• 9:20
  less than 3 days later,
• 9:21
  Pakistan did just
• 9:23
  that.
• 9:23
  The strikes hit Afghanistan's Kunar and Paktika provinces at around 3 a.m.
• 9:28
  Pakistan says the air strikes
• 9:30
  followed a planned intelligence-driven ground operation
• 9:33
  in the country's northwest and targeted safe havens used by the groups
• 9:37
  behind recent attacks on Pakistani forces.
• 9:40
  Across the border,
• 9:41
  however,
• 9:41
  Afghan officials were describing a very different outcome.
• 9:45
  They say one of the bombs struck a family home,
• 9:47
  killing a man,
• 9:48
  a woman,
• 9:48
  and a girl
• 9:49
  while wounding 4 of their relatives.
• 9:51
  The United Nations has since confirmed those civilian deaths.
• 9:56
  Other strikes hit Paktika province,
• 9:57
  where Afghan officials say a shop and an unoccupied house were destroyed
• 10:02
  without causing additional casualties.
• 10:05
  To understand where we are now,
• 10:06
  let's return to Friday's assault in the northwestern Pakistani city of Kohat.
• 10:11
  A suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound there.
• 10:15
  8 gunmen then stormed government offices and opened fire,
• 10:18
  setting off a battle that lasted roughly 20 hours.
• 10:21
  By the time Pakistani forces regained control,
• 10:23
  at least 21 people had been killed,
• 10:26
  most of them police officers,
• 10:27
  and more than 100 others were wounded.
• 10:30
  The violence did not end there.
• 10:32
  Another 6 Pakistani security personnel,
• 10:35
  including 2 army officers,
• 10:36
  were killed Sunday during a shootout with militants in the nearby city of Hunggu.
• 10:41
  The attacks came as militant violence against
• 10:43
  Pakistan's police and military has surged,
• 10:47
  particularly across the country's northwest.
• 10:49
  So far no group has claimed responsibility for either attack,
• 10:53
  although suspicion has fallen on the Pakistani Taliban,
• 10:56
  formerly known as the TTP.
• 10:59
  The TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban
• 11:02
  that returned to power in 2021,
• 11:05
  although the two groups are closely allied.
• 11:08
  Pakistan accuses Kabul of sheltering TTP leaders and
• 11:11
  allowing militants to organize attacks from Afghan territory.
• 11:15
  The Taliban government,
• 11:17
  well,
• 11:17
  they deny that.
• 11:19
  That dispute has now become much more
• 11:21
  than an exchange of accusations.
• 11:23
  Pakistan blamed the Kohat attack on militants based inside Afghanistan
• 11:28
  and warned Saturday that it could strike them there.
• 11:31
  Pakistan does not view this terrorist violence
• 11:33
  simply as an internal security problem.
• 11:36
  It believes militants
• 11:37
  are attacking its forces and then finding sanctuary across a border that
• 11:41
  the Afghan government either cannot or will not secure.
• 11:45
  The Afghan government views Pakistan's air
• 11:48
  strikes as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
• 11:51
  A Taliban government spokesman condemned the air strikes,
• 11:54
  accused Pakistan of trying to distract from its own security failures,
• 11:58
  and vowed that Afghanistan would deliver what he called a
• 12:01
  fitting response.
• 12:02
  The UN says cross-border violence between the two countries
• 12:06
  has caused more than 1100 civilian deaths and injuries
• 12:10
  in Afghanistan
• 12:11
  so far this year.
• 12:14
  And that my friends,
• 12:15
  is the PDB
• 12:16
  afternoon bulletin for Monday,
• 12:17
  the 21st of September.
• 12:18
  Now,
• 12:19
  if you have any questions or comments,
• 12:20
  and I hope you do,
• 12:20
  just reach out to me
• 12:21
  at PDB@thefirstv.com.
• 12:24
  And to listen to the show ad-free,
• 12:26
  you know you can do that,
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  it's very simple.
• 12:28
  Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief
• 12:31
  by visiting PDBpremium.com.
• 12:34
  I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow.
• 12:36
  Until then,
• 12:37
  stay informed,
• 12:38
  stay safe,
• 12:39
  stay cool.
• 12:54
  Hey,
• 12:54
  Mike Baker here with an important health tip.
• 12:57
  Now,
• 12:57
  look,
• 12:58
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  right?
• 12:59
  I guess that's the unfortunate truth of all,
• 13:01
  and daily schedules are getting crazier,
• 13:03
  you know what I'm talking about,
• 13:04
  right?
• 13:04
  Earlier alarms,
• 13:05
  more school activities,
• 13:06
  busier days,
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• 13:09
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