IAN WILLIAMS: In China’s most brutal purge since Chairman Mao, a string of senior generals have vanished into black hole prisons – so is Xi Jinping locking away anyone who’ll oppose his plans to invade Taiwan?

China stands out in the grand theater of state visits, and Keir Starmer has naively taken on everything from the stone-faced guard of honor to the marble-clad splendor of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.

Marches echoed from the hall’s vast pillars as an army of chiefs prepared a lavish banquet for the prime minister and his wide-eyed entourage. As a totalitarian theater work, these events are unique.

Despots from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping have stepped up here, calculating that the optics would draw attention away from the empty platitudes served with all these dishes—last night’s menu reportedly included roasted cod, steamed beef with potatoes, fried breaded shrimp, stewed vegetables in pumpkin broth, and dumplings with sweet rice.

Until this week, China’s top general, General Zhang Youxia, could expect much tougher gruel as he suddenly disappeared amid accusations of corruption and possibly espionage.

While Starmer and Xi were attending their banquet, chatting about the relative merits of Manchester United and Arsenal, the city outside the Great Hall was abuzz with intrigue over a purge that was destroying the People’s Liberation Army’s top leaders with a brutality not seen since the dark days of Mao.

Zhang Youxia is his latest victim and is currently under investigation by the Communist Party for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law.” His fate is unknown, but he is almost certainly in what the Party calls ‘administrative detention’.

This is the innocuous cover for China’s network of ‘black’ prisons, an archipelago of secret detention facilities that operate outside the normal legal system (insofar as the country has a ‘normal’ system).

Those who have emerged from these horrific prisons and are brave enough to tell the story describe long hours in solitary confinement, frequent shackling and constant surveillance, no right to a lawyer, and limited contact with their families.

China denies their existence, and legally this is true. They are not subject to any control other than that of the Party, which recognizes no authority other than its own. Some prisons cater to dissidents, but the Party reserves much of this dark network for its own errant members or other officials deemed corrupt — an extremely flexible term in China.

Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group, compiled evidence from former detainees describing physical and psychological torture. This includes sleep and food deprivation, beatings, forced medication, denial of medical treatment, sexual abuse, and being forced into stressful positions, including being suspended by the wrists.

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, currently living in exile, was held in the ‘black prison’ for 81 days. He described how he shared his cell with two soldiers who looked after him 24 hours a day, even monitoring him in the toilet. Since he was never allowed outside, he exercised by walking up and down.

He said it was ‘the most difficult situation a person could be in’ and that he felt ‘on the verge of death’ every minute.

Safeguard Defenders founder Peter Dahin was also briefly held in a black prison in China, one of a number of foreigners. He was blindfolded and locked in a cell with the same expressionless guards recording his every move. He was denied entry to his embassy, ​​deprived of sleep, prevented from exercising, and subjected to long and difficult interrogations that attempted to portray him as a spy.

Xi Jinping’s China is not Stalin’s Russia, and there is no bullet in the neck for rivals, at least not immediately.

The Party likes its version of ‘due process’ and the purpose of ‘black prisons’ is to release the prisoner who will emerge months or even years later traumatized and having confessed to a real or imagined ‘crime’. A perfunctory hearing will then be held, resulting in a long prison sentence or execution.

It’s hard to say exactly what Zhang should do. Although more pragmatic than Xi, he was seen as a loyalist.

General Zhang Youxia, until this week China’s top general, suddenly disappeared amid accusations of corruption and possibly espionage

‘Corruption’ in China is a concept that encompasses a multitude of sins, including inadequate loyalty to the leader. Reports from Beijing suggest he may have leaked nuclear secrets to America, while some overseas Chinese sources speak harshly of power struggles, coup attempts and rebellions against Xi. These groups have always had a vivid imagination, but the Communist Party is such an opaque organization that it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction, rumor from reality.

A report in PLA Daily, an army newspaper, said Zhang and Lui, another purged general, “severely betrayed the trust and expectations of the Communist Party Central Committee” and accused them of “trampling and undermining the Central Military Commission.”

The CMC controls the armed forces, and Zhang, 75,’s official position was vice president. He was also a member of the Party’s 24-man ruling politburo. Two years ago the CMC had seven members; Now only two people are left standing: President Xi and a lesser general named Zhang Shengmin, who is in charge of discipline. This means Xi is effectively the sole commander of the world’s largest military.

While nine senior PLA officers were purged between October and November last year alone, it is estimated that at least 20 generals were dismissed in the two-year period before that. It is unknown what happened to them. The purge included six top generals from the elite Rocket Force, which oversees China’s nuclear weapons; Two defense ministers and one foreign minister were also dismissed.

Of particular interest is the targeting of Zhang, who is the only senior Chinese general with military experience since China’s brief 1979 invasion of Vietnam. He was well known and respected in American military circles; He had visited the United States and was Washington’s go-to person in the PLA during times of tension.

Former U.S. Air Force Gen. David Stilwell, who served as the State Department’s top diplomat to East Asia in the first Trump administration, said Zhang impressed Americans as a professional soldier rather than a political soldier.

This may be his undoing in a deeply paranoid Communist Party. If Zhang had gotten too close to the Americans to appease Xi, or had leaked nuclear secrets as claimed, he could expect little mercy.

The CIA is still reeling from the brutal unraveling of a spy ring it ran in China, in which nearly 30 sources were killed or captured between 2010 and 2012. This is seen as one of the agency’s biggest disasters, setting back its espionage efforts in China by years.

Of course, Beijing’s rapidly growing arsenal of nuclear weapons is of particular interest to Washington. Officially, the US administration has been coy about the latest developments in China, with a White House official saying they have nothing to share about ‘reports of palace intrigue’.

Leaked US intelligence assessments following the purge of China’s Rocket Force suggested that corruption in the unit was so widespread that missiles were filled with water instead of fuel and the lids of silos in western China could not be opened properly. This was probably a mischief on the part of American spies, but Western strategists now think that the purge within the PLA, whether the result of corruption or a power struggle, has gone so far as to hamper China’s ability to wage war.

The PLA once ran a business empire so large that preparing for war seemed to take a backseat to making money. After coming to power in 2012, Xi promised to professionalize and modernize the PLA, and billions of dollars were spent on shiny new equipment.

Sir Keir Starmer shaking hands with the Chinese prime minister at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday

But the PLA is also a party organization, which means that its loyalty must be to the Party above all else and must be imposed through the system of political commissars. This can often conflict with his professional mission and sow the seeds of corruption and power struggles that continue to plague him.

Xi, who has purged most of his top generals, has more direct control over the military than ever before. Western analysts viewed Zhang as a cautious advisor, especially on Taiwan; But Xi appears to be stricter, as he has ordered the military to be ready for the invasion by next year.

His purge will not only demoralize the ranks, but will also encourage more sycophantic generals to tell him what they want to hear.

Certainly analysts in Taiwan are investigating the latest plot, fearful of where this could lead.

Tristan Tang, an associate member of the Secure Taiwan Association, suggested that Zhang’s purge was due to Xi not being enthusiastic enough about the invasion timetable.

Before leaving Beijing, Keir Starmer stopped for a photo in the Forbidden City, where he talked about the ‘huge opportunities’ in China. The imperial palace behind it had been home to emperors for centuries who made palace intrigue almost a hobby.

As for the brutal exile of unflattering courtiers, little has changed in this deadly game.

Ian Williams is the author of Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of China’s Economy.