One of the hottest tickets in military and policy circles focused on China affairs these days are four sets of playing cards featuring senior Chinese Communist Party leaders and People’s Liberation Army generals and admirals, military weapons and organizations.
The decks are the work of the Air Force’s specialty think tank, the China Aerospace Studies Institute. The think tank regularly produces eye-opening reports and assessments on all things related to the Chinese military, especially its air and space forces.
The cards come in four decks, with one deck of leaders making Chinese President Xi Jinping the ace of spades. The other decks are divided into CCP and PLA equipment, services and concepts and organizations.
They harken back to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s 2003 deck of playing cards featuring most-wanted Iraqis sought by the military. As of January, all but four of the 52 most wanted, including ace of spades Saddam Hussein, have been killed or captured.
The 54 CCP and PLA leaders — among them two jokers — are shown with photos and positions in a 2024 deck that includes many of the numerous high-ranking admirals and generals who have been purged under Mr. Xi’s ongoing loyalty and anti-corruption drive.
Among those in the deck that have been ousted are PLA Gen. He Weidong, the six of spades, and the ousted vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the CCP organ that controls the military. Adm. Miao Hua, the CMC’s chief ideologist, is the four of spades. Both were formally expelled from the CCP this week. Fired Defense Minister Dong Jun is on the two of spades.
The two jokers in the deck are Gen. Wang Chunning, commander of the People’s Armed Police, and Gen. Zhang Hongbing, the PAP political commissar.
The equipment deck includes the PLA’s long-range nuclear-capable bomber, the H-6, as the ace of spades and the Type 003 aircraft carrier, its third flattop, as the ace of hearts. The ace of clubs is the silo-based nuclear missile the DF-5A/B/C, and the J-20 stealth fighter is the king of spades.
The services and concepts deck features the PLA air force as the ace of spades, along with 53 other key military organizations and functions, including the three of spades as “Xi Jinping Thought,” the personal communist ideology of Mr. Xi centered on himself as the “core.”
The PLA’s organization deck is made up of more than 50 key military units and organizations, including the Eastern Theater Command, as the four of hearts. That command is closely watched as the military forces that would be the lead in any future invasion of Taiwan.
