This is CBS I on the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-hosts,

and we're very pleased to welcome Charles Burton of the Synopsis Institute in Canada. We begin, however,

with a conversation about Xi Jinping, the three-term

leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the military, the People's Liberation Army. You will

recall from history, the PLA is sworn to the party, not the state, not China, not the Chinese people, the party.

And then over these last now 12 years, there have been time and time again anecdotes where the

military is obliged through a person here, a person there, to swear allegiance to Xi Jinping personally, puzzling.

Gordon, a very good evening to you.

Did I say that correctly, that swear to Xi Jinping was not built into the idea of being

leader of the Chinese Communist Party?

He invented it?

Well, certainly Mazadung believe that the military should be personally loyal to him.

But that concept sort of faded away with Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Zemin, and Hu Jintao.

Xi Jinping has brought back the notion of absolute loyalty to China's leader.

And what we're seeing recently are very disturbing reports about

disappearances of senior officers of the People's Liberation Army. And these reports, some of them

are unconfirmed. But even if they are not true, it indicates that there are senior figures in Beijing who are trying to

destabilize Xi Jinping. If these recent unconfirmed reports are true, it means that we could be

seeing the worst turmoil in the People's Liberation Army since 1971.

Charles, a very good evening to you. I mentioned that, though it is

unconfirmed, it was in the Financial Times that at the recent National

People's Congress, which always is characterized as a rubber-stamp meeting

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