China’s top ranking general under investigation for alleged violations amid ongoing purge of leadership | China
China’s top general is under investigation, China’s defense ministry has confirmed, in the highest-profile case so far in its aggressive anti-corruption purge of senior military leaders in recent months.
Zhang Youxia serves as second-in-command under President Xi Jinping, deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission, the supreme command body, and has long been considered Xi’s closest military ally.
The ministry announced on Saturday that Zhang and Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the CMC’s joint personnel department, were under investigation on suspicion of serious disciplinary and law violations.
Wall StreetJournal reported that Zhang was accused of leaking information It cited people briefed on the allegations, citing people briefed on the country’s nuclear weapons program against the United States and accepting bribes for official actions, including the promotion of an officer to defense minister.
The Guardian was unable to independently verify the reports.
Zhang is also a member of the ruling Communist party’s elite politburo and one of the few leading military officers with combat experience.
The military was one of the main targets of the massive anti-corruption crackdown that Xi ordered in 2012. This initiative has also reached the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army, with the elite Rocket Force being targeted in 2023.
Zhang’s dismissal marks the second general to serve on the Central Military Commission since the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. He has not been seen in public since November 20, when he met with the Russian defense minister in Moscow.
Foreign diplomats and security analysts are watching developments closely, given Zhang’s closeness to Xi and the commission’s work from the command’s perspective, as well as the PLA’s ongoing military modernization and posture.
Although China has not been at war for decades, it has taken an increasingly strong stance over the disputed East China Sea and South China Sea, as well as the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China claims. Beijing held its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan late last year.
Singapore-based China security expert James Char said the military’s daily operations could continue as normal despite the purges, but the targeting of Zhang showed Xi was responding to criticism that the crackdown was too selective.
“Xi is deploying second-line PLA officials, in many cases on a temporary basis, to fill tasks vacated by his predecessors,” said Char, a scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“China’s military modernizers will continue to strive for the two goals Xi has set for the PLA: completing modernization by 2035 and becoming a world-class armed force by 2049.”
Zhang is the second vice president of the CMC to fall out of favor in recent months. Former CMC vice chairman He Weidong was expelled from the party and the PLA for corruption in October last year. He was replaced by Zhang Shengmin.
Eight top generals, including He Weidong, were expelled from the Communist party on corruption charges in October 2025. In recent years, two former defense ministers were expelled from the ruling party due to corruption. The crackdown is slowing the supply of advanced weapons and hurting the revenues of some of China’s biggest defense firms.
Born in Beijing, Zhang joined the army in 1968, rose through the ranks and joined the military commission in late 2012 as the PLA’s modernization drive gathered pace.
In 1979, it fought Vietnam in a brief but bloody border war initiated by China over Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia the previous year and ousting the Beijing-backed Terrorists.
According to state media, Zhang was 26 when he was sent to the front lines to fight the Vietnamese and was quickly promoted. While the conflict continued, he also fought in another border conflict with Vietnam in 1984.
“During the war, whether offensive or defensive, Zhang Youxia performed brilliantly,” the official China Youth Daily wrote in an article titled “These Chinese generals killed the enemy on the battlefield” published in 2017.
Some Chinese scholars have noted that Zhang clearly emerged from the conflict as a modernizer in terms of military tactics, weapons, and the need for a better trained force.
