Hong Kong, January 26 (ANI): Chairman Xi Jinping caused shockwaves by arresting the highest military leader inChina – General Zhang Youxia – it was announced on January 24. Simultaneously, General Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department, had been detained.
Rumors are swirling as to why Xi made this apocalyptic move, especially considering Zhang was once considered a loyal ally in the military.
Both generals had been absent from a January 20 study session for provincial- and ministerial-level leading cadres, indicating they were picked up before then.
These two arrests illustrate how Xi’s campaign to cleanse the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and to instill maximum fealty has reached a crescendo. Zhang was the highest uniformed figure in the Central Military Commission (CMC), which is under Xi’s chairmanship, whilst Liu was a member of the same commission.
The CMC is now left with just two members – Xi and General Zhang Shengmin, who was promoted to vice chairman last October and who has served as a political officer and discipline inspector for most of his career – making a mockery of the whole commission framework.
In fact, Xi has systematically wiped out the top echelon of the PLA in recent years. In 2022, the CMC had six members after Xi forged it into his ideal structure. Now there is just one member under Xi, and it must be asked whether it is still functional or if Xi will simply abolish it. Xi handpicked the CMC’s members, but it seems none lived up to his ideals.
Prior to this latest crackdown, He Weidong, Li Shangfu and Miao Hua had all been removed from the CMC. One commentator suggested “fear has replaced initiative inside the PLA, turning it into a hollow force that looks strong on parade but cannot fight a real war”.
An article in the PLA Daily provided this explanation for the high-profile purge. “Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, as senior cadres of the party and the military, seriously betrayed the trust and expectations of the party Central Committee and the CMC, severely trampled on and undermined the chairman of the CMC responsibility system, seriously fostered political and corruption problems that undermined the party’s absolute leadership over the military, and threatened the party’s ruling foundation, seriously damaged the image and prestige of the CMC, and severely impacted the political and ideological foundation for unity and progress among all officers and soldiers.”
As if that were not enough, the PLA Daily article continued: “They caused immense damage to the military’s political building, political ecology and combat effectiveness, and had an extremely negative impact on the party, the country and the military.”
The piece vowed that Zhang and Liu would be “investigated and punished according to party discipline, and the law will undoubtedly further rectify the political situation, eliminate ideological poison and malpractices, and revitalize the organization, consolidating and deepening the results of political rectification, promoting the rebirth of the PLA, and injecting strong impetus into the development of a strong military.”
Cleaning house is not new. In a speech on January 12, for example, Xi said the fight against corruption remains “severe and complex”. He called for an “unwavering high-pressure stance” on corruption because it “is a roadblock and stumbling stone to the party and nation’s development”.
Indeed, 983,000 people received disciplinary punishments in 2025 – some 0.7% of the entire Chinese population – as part of Xi’s anti-corruption drive. The figure was up 10.6% compared to a year earlier, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Detentions included 115 senior officials at the provincial or ministerial level, of which 69 were punished.
However, what is stunning in this case is that two of the highest PLA members were felled in one blow. It also raises questions about the morale and readiness of the PLA, especially as Xi eyes a potential operation to deal with Taiwan once and for all.
Like Xi, Zhang is a princeling, a descendant of the early communist leadership.
Apparently, an investigative task force has been dispatched to Shenyang, where Zhang was commander from 2007-12, to seek evidence of earlier wrongdoings there too.
Joaquin Camarena, a former intelligence analyst in the US Marine Corps, believes “the investigation of Zhang and Liu by the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission is due to political and military reasons rather than corruption”. He noted corruption is merely a convenient label used in investigations. “Zhang was likely removed as vice chairman because his powerbase was viewed by Xi as an obstacle to his control over the PLA, and more recently as a hindrance to its modernization.”
Camarena added, “Zhang’s experience is why Xi allowed him to serve after he reached the PLA’s mandatory retirement age and to maintain his powerbase, despite viewing him as a political liability. Xi decided to remove Zhang and Liu due to their failure to rapidly advance the PLA’s combat readiness and modernization efforts to meet his expectations. Xi viewed the slow progress as detrimental to achieving the goal of transforming the PLA into a world-class military by 2049.”
Quoting sources inside China, the Wall Street Journal proffered reasons for the pair’s dismissal. Sources asserted that Zhang was accused of “accepting bribes for official acts, including the promotion of an officer to defense minister”. This would be Li Shangfu, who was detained in 2023. The journal claimed Zhang was also under investigation for “forming political cliques”, i.e. building personal networks that rival Xi’s power.
However, the bombshell revelation from the Wall Street Journal’s sources was that Zhang had allegedly leaked core technical data on China’s nuclear weapons to the USA. The US newspaper suggested evidence for this had come from Gu Jun, former general manager of the China National Nuclear Corporation, who is also in detention.
However, no further details were available of this alleged security breach. It should be noted that this is not the first time allegations of Chinese nuclear data being leaked has occurred. There were speculative reports in 2023 that Russian Deputy Minister Rudenko had told Xi that former Foreign Minister Qin Gang and relatives of top PLA Rocket Force officers had passed Chinese nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies.
However, M. Taylor Fravel, Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remarked that while “Zhang has been accused of leaking information about China’s nuclear weapons program, I suspect the political charge of ‘destroying the CMC chairmen responsibility system’ or defying Xi remains the most likely reason for his removal”.
Another academic skeptical of the Wall Street Journal’s account is Neil Thomas, a Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute. He posited several questions, the first being how Zhang could even do this. “His communications are monitored and he rarely (if ever?) meets anyone unaccompanied. [It] would require a pretty vast conspiracy to go undetected for a long time. And for a battle-hardened general to betray everything that gave his life meaning for the last few decades: possible, but very difficult.”
Thomas also questioned the veracity of 2023 reports about Foreign Minister Qin passing nuclear secrets. “How would Qin get anywhere close to nuclear secrets, given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the PLA are so stove-piped? And if this were true and known by Beijing, surely Qin would be purged rather than allowed to just resign from the Central Committee?”
Thirdly, “Perhaps the nuclear accusations really were made at a briefing on Saturday … Internal accounts are not always true, and perhaps the really very incredible nature of purging Zhang meant that Beijing felt it needed to come up with the most serious story possible to justify his detention, even for serious but less sensational corruption and disloyalty. Maybe it’s a justification. It would be a little extreme, even for Xi, but I think this is more believable.”
Thomas assessed overall: “I believe it’s most likely that Zhang got caught up in the corruption scandals that have rocked the procurement bureaucracy over the last few years and which took down Li. His political sin would be corruption, covering for others in a corrupt conspiracy (already political clique-type behavior), and betraying Xi’s loyalty and trust by not implementing his vision for a cleaner and more capable fighting force.”
One of the more extreme rumors circulating, as propounded by Canada-based democracy activist Sheng Xue, is that Zhang and Liu planned to move against Xi and capture him on the evening of January 18. She noted Xi was set to stay at the Jingxi Hotel in Beijing, and that for the past few years he has been “homeless”, changing locations every few days. Her source said the operation, however, was betrayed by an informant.
All this speculation emphasizes how difficult it is to read the tea leaves of internal goings-on in the top rungs of the Chinese Communist Party and PLA. Nonetheless, it is known that in the past 2.5 years Xi has removed more than 50 senior PLA and defense industry officials. In recent years, Xi has gone after the highest echelons of the PLA, something he did not do initially. This shows his confidence in his authority, and the deep-seated nature of corruption in the PLA. State media said “no place is out of bounds, no ground is left unturned, and no tolerance is allowed” in the campaign against corruption within the military. This year marks the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and it is instrumental as the PLA approaches its 2027 centenary goals.
Camarena pointed out that Zhang’s and Liu’s removal “will have a profound impact on the PLA’s combat readiness as well as its modernization process,” because the PLA “now lacks two individuals with experience in conducting real-world operations.
Zhang and Liu’s slow progress likely stems from their understanding that it takes time to develop the PLA into a combat-effective force, which cannot be expedited. Liu’s removal, however, would especially be felt in the Joint Staff Department because it’s tasked with operational planning, developing military requirements and strategies, and guiding joint training and combat readiness development.”
Dr. Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, argued, “Xi, as a paranoid leader surrounded by sycophants unwilling or unable to challenge him, is always at risk of strategic miscalculation. Recall that Stalin decimated the Red Army’s leadership on the eve of the Nazi invasion – with disastrous results. Now China’s military is paying a particularly steep price for the insecurity of Xi, who has decimated the high command.”
The disappearance of most of the CMC in the past few years also illustrates how difficult it is for Western military leaders to build relationships with their Chinese counterparts. One month they are in a post, and the next they are purged. Such discontinuity is very disruptive for building long-term relationships.
The detention of these two CMC members certainly raises eyebrows. Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA Corporation, offered this assessment: “Three possibilities, possibly overlapping, none of them good for China’s ability to fight: (a) the PLA is so ludicrously corrupt that basically everyone above a certain rank is either involved or knows about it and is compromised by it; (b) Xi Jinping believes the PLA is insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda; (c) Xi is just really bad at this and purges anyone he thinks isn’t doing a good job, possibly due to an obsession with unrealistic timetables.”
Eveleth acknowledged the PLA has been riven by factions over the past 30 years, but “there are still so many unknowns here I expect we will not get a coherent story until well after both Xi and Zhang are in the ground”. (ANI)