Can the 15th Five-Year Plan Fix the People’s Liberation Army’s Procurement Bottlenecks?

China's latest Five-Year Plan seeks to overhaul the People's Liberation Army's procurement system by prioritizing technological self-reliance and integrating civilian innovation with military power. This modernization agenda, however, is undermined by high-profile purges of senior military leaders, which signal deep instability and corruption within the defense establishment. Despite visible progress in developing advanced weaponry like hypersonic vehicles and AI-enabled systems, reforms are fundamentally stalled by an industrial base dominated by a few massive state-owned conglomerates. This creates a core contradiction where the party's demand for political control and patronage clashes with the goal of building a truly efficient and meritocratic fighting force.