China’s leaders are expanding an anti-corruption campaign targeting power centers within the military, risking instability and a crisis of confidence during a sensitive time in China’s foreign relations.

Why it matters: Recent purges highlight the obstacles facing China’s leader Xi Jinping as he tries to complete his military modernization drive by 2050.

Driving the news: Nine Chinese generals and three Chinese defense technology officials were removed from a top Chinese Communist Party advisory body late last week, according to Chinese state media.

• The generals largely came from the Rocket Force, which oversees China’s missile program.

• “The strategic nuclear force is what China relies on as the bottom line of its national security, and the last resort on Taiwan,” said Yun Sun, China program director at the DC-based Stimson Center, told Reuters.

• “It will take some time for China to clean up the mess and restore confidence in the Rocket Force’s competence and trustworthiness. It means for the time being, China is at a weaker spot.”

Details: The defense industry officials, meanwhile, all work at state-owned missile manufacturing companies.

• “These officials’ removal may engender political instability among the political leadership,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Three members of the powerful Politburo also once worked at the same three companies of the ousted officials.

• In China’s opaque high-level politics, that kind of link between powerful officials and fallen officials could mean Xi is targeting patronage networks.