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In this mailing:
* Gordon G. Chang: Has Xi Jinping Lost Control of China's Military — And China Itself?
* Amir Taheri: The New Middle East and the Trump Method


** Has Xi Jinping Lost Control of China's Military — And China Itself? ([link removed])
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by Gordon G. Chang • October 19, 2025 at 5:00 am
* Tellingly, the most senior of the nine officers axed on the 17th was General He Weidong, the second-ranked vice chairman of the Commission and Xi Jinping's No. 1 loyalist in the PLA. The general had gained prominence as Xi's top enforcer in the military.
* Gen. He was not the only officer who backed Xi and has now been taken out of the military's leadership ranks. Moreover, it is difficult to identify any Xi adversary who was purged in the last 18 months.
* It is unlikely, at a time Xi Jinping appears to be fighting for political survival, that he would remove his most important supporter in the military. It is far more probable that Xi has lost control of the People's Liberation Army, especially because the removals strengthen Gen. Zhang, Xi's adversary.
* China, by Thursday, could have a new leader. Or a new round of purges.

Tellingly, the most senior of the nine officers removed on October 17 from their posts in China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) was General He Weidong, the second-ranked vice chairman of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission and Xi Jinping's No. 1 loyalist in the PLA. The general had gained prominence as Xi's top enforcer in the military. Pictured: General He attends the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing on March 4, 2025. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)

On October 17, China's Ministry of National Defense announced that the Communist Party's Central Committee and Central Military Commission had, after investigations, removed nine senior officers from their posts in the People's Liberation Army.

The stunning announcement occurred on the eve of the long-delayed Fourth Plenum of the Party's 20th Central Committee, scheduled to start tomorrow, October 20, and continue for four days. On the agenda are crucial economic matters, including the country's 15th Five-Year Plan, which covers the rest of the decade, 2026-2030.

Analysts are also looking for hints whether the Party, at the plenum, will announce changes in its leadership.

If Xi Jinping, the Party's general secretary and chairman of its Central Military Commission, was responsible for the just-announced removals of the flag officers, he will undoubtedly emerge from the plenum as strong as ever, perhaps even stronger.

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** The New Middle East and the Trump Method ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • October 19, 2025 at 4:00 am
* Trump made a flowing speech at the Israeli parliament that was remarkable for its frankness in showing the true picture of the situation to Israelis, combined with asserting his unflinching commitment to their security.
* [W]hat does peace, when poetic conceit is discarded, mean?
* It means that a war has ended with one clear winner and one clear loser, effacing a status quo that had bred the war. In the new status quo that must be created, the winner ought to have the final word.
* The second element in the method is to steer clear of flattering the foe rather than placating him, which would persuade him that you are acting out of weakness.
* Obama's notorious speech in Cairo was one example of self-defeating flattery. He tried to flatter the Muslim Brotherhood by obliquely attacking President Hosni Mubarak. We all know what happened next.
* Trump, on the other hand, used the occasion to flex his American muscles and send a clear message: We're powerful enough to make your life difficult but also ready to invite you to the table, even if offering you a side-chair. This was the message sent to the leadership in Tehran, who missed the opportunity.
* The third element of the method is to go for the jugular by stating your maximum demand. In that vein, Trump made the establishment of normal relations with Israel the sine qua non of joining his New Middle East project.
* Trump doesn't dance around the real issues. He demands that Tehran establish relations with Israel, end its project for long-range missiles, and scrap the military dimension of its nuclear program. In exchange, he promises to ease sanctions on Iran with a view to ending them if Tehran does its part of the deal. More importantly, perhaps, he implicitly promises to prevent another Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran accepts the deal on offer.

Pictured: US President Donald Trump addresses the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on October 13, 2025 in Jerusalem. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Getty Images)

When President Donald Trump first launched his bid to stop the war in Gaza, most observers expected another attempt at making the impossible possible. After all, another ceasefire in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages had been unveiled and unraveled a few months earlier. Thus, the initial reaction from the global punditry was "Oh NO! Not again!"

The consensus in the commentariat was that nothing short of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated plan to "finish off Hamas and bring home all the hostages" would extinguish the fires of this war.

That analysis seemed apt when Trump himself talked of a ceasefire in exchange for the return of hostages.

However, within just 24 hours that déjà vu scheme was upgraded to a peace plan not only for Gaza but for the entire Middle East. A day later that new version of déjà vu was again upgraded into what Donald the Dealmaker baptized as the New Middle East.

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