China’s top general under investigation in latest military purge
BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party has launched an unprecedented investigation into Gen. Zhang Youxia, the country’s most senior military officer after President Xi Jinping, marking the most dramatic move yet in a sweeping purge of China’s armed forces leadership.
The Ministry of National Defense and state media said Saturday that Zhang is being probed for “serious violations of discipline and law,” language typically indicating suspected corruption and political wrongdoing. He has been placed under official investigation alongside Gen. Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the Central Military Commission’s (CMC) Joint Staff Department — a powerful role overseeing strategy and combat planning.
Zhang, 75, served as vice-chairman of the CMC, China’s top military decision-making body, and was one of the few senior officers with actual combat experience from earlier border conflicts with Vietnam. He also sat in the Politburo, the Communist Party’s elite executive council. Analysts say his fall represents the most senior military figure to be targeted in disciplinary action since the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
A Broader Anti-Corruption and Loyalty Drive
The investigation comes amid President Xi’s long-running campaign to reshape the armed forces, ostensibly to root out corruption and ensure loyalty to the party’s core leadership. Officially launched after Xi became party leader in 2012, the anti-graft drive has disciplined hundreds of thousands of officials across the party and state institutions, including within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Targets have included top commanders from strategic branches like the PLA Rocket Force and former defense ministers — figures once seen as pillars of Xi’s military modernization efforts. Last October, another CMC vice-chair, He Weidong, was expelled from the party, and a series of other senior officers have been removed in recent years.
While Chinese officials frame the probe as part of routine discipline enforcement, foreign analysts interpret it as part of a deeper effort to centralize control over the military and eliminate potential centers of independent power within the PLA. With the CMC increasingly pared down to Xi and a small number of loyalists, critics warn that institutional checks are weakening at a time of rising regional tensions.
Regional and Strategic Implications
The purge unfolds amid heightened focus on China’s military posture, especially its ambitions to project power in the Asia-Pacific, including around Taiwan and the South China Sea. Though Beijing continues to emphasize peaceful development, the shake-up of top military leadership has drawn scrutiny from foreign governments and analysts concerned about unpredictability and the capacity of senior commanders to manage complex security challenges.
Zhang’s disappearance from recent high-profile events had already prompted speculation inside and outside China about his political standing. In China’s political system, a public investigation announcement almost invariably foreshadows dismissal from office, expulsion from the party and, in many cases, criminal prosecution.
As investigations proceed, observers will be watching both official state reporting and any changes in China’s military command structure for signs of broader strategic recalibration — a story with implications far beyond Beijing’s central leadership.