The Mountaintop Mirage: Why Xi’s Military Purges Cannot Produce the Force He Wants

During the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, a 26-year-old company commander’s unit was pinned down by a fortified hilltop. After frontal assaults failed, the junior officer made an extraordinary request: an entire battalion, four times the size of his own unit, for a jungle flanking maneuver. The regimental commander agreed. The surprise assault broke the Vietnamese defense. This company commander’s pedigree was as formidable as his tactics: His father was a founding general who had just re...