And Then There Were None: Zhang Youxia and the Fall of the Central Military Commission

The six members of China’s Central Military Commission being sworn in in 2013. Only Zhang Shengmin, furthest on the left, remains in office and not under investigation. 

Photo by Greg Baker/Pool via Reuters.

Before Saturday, January 24th, General Zhang Youxia was one of China’s most powerful men. The most senior of the Vice-Chairs of the Central Military Commission (CMC), he was the single highest ranking uniformed officer in the entire People’s Liberation Army, second in China’s military hierarchy only to Xi Jinping. Zhang was one of very few Chinese generals with combat experience, having served in China’s war with Vietnam in the late 1970s and 80s. Zhang was believed to have a good relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping: their fathers were friends and had served together in the Chinese civil war, causing some to view Zhang as a member of Xi’s inner circle and even “Xi’s most trusted friend” in the leadership of the PLA.  Further evidence of this connection was that Xi kept Zhang in place after the normal retirement age. Then, late Saturday, the the Ministry of National Defense publicly declared that he was under investigation for “grave violations of discipline and the law.” Given that these charges were declared publicly, it is highly unlikely that he will be found innocent, especially when Xi could have just made the 75-year old Zhang quietly retire. Zhang Youxia’s downfall was intended to be public.

The exact reasons for his fall from grace, other than the mention of “grave violations,” are unclear. A People’s Daily article, released the same day as the news of Zhang being investigated, accused him of undermining “the chairman responsibility system” and having “encouraged and exacerbated corruption and political problems that undermine the Party’s absolute leadership over the military.” Corruption has been an issue in the Chinese military for decades. Officers often receive promotions by paying increasingly large bribes to their superiors, with some generals paying millions of dollars in cash for a higher rank. Zhang has probably committed some kind of corruption-related offensive during his career, based simply on the lengthy period that he has been in the PLA, as well as the fact that he has spent time in the PLA’s General Armaments Department. The Armaments Department has a reputation for being especially corrupt because it is responsible for purchasing weapons, which provides its officers with plentiful opportunities to either enrich themselves by taking bribes from manufacturers in exchange for favorable contracts or simply embezzle some of the funds that are supposed to be spent on arms. 

The reference to corruption in the People’s Daily editorial, however, is of secondary importance to the charge of “undermining the absolute leadership of the Party.” Uniquely among the major militaries of the world, the PLA is not legally the military of the Chinese state, but is instead the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party. Zhang has been accused of undermining the army's loyalty to the party and the “chairman responsibility system” loyalty to the chairman, Xi Jinping. If the investigation of Zhang results in a public trial, we may learn of attempts on his part to give the PLA more political independence or create an ethos of loyalty to the nation over the party. It is just as likely, however, that Zhang’s rank, lengthy career, and reputation were perceived as giving him an independent powerbase, one that was unacceptable to the Party and to Xi. This would be a continuation of the years-long pattern of Xi Jinping centralizing power around himself, taking an unprecedented third term at the head of the Party and stacking the Party Congress with his protégés. Zhang was supposed to be Xi’s ally in the military, but it is possible that Xi came to see him as a rival.

The strangest theory for why Zhang has been placed under public investigation comes from the Wall Street Journal. Citing anonymous Chinese sources “familiar with high level briefings on the allegations”, the Journal claimed that Zhang Youxia has been accused of giving “core technical data” on China’s nuclear weapons to the United States. The US Intelligence Community would be ecstatic to have a source as highly placed as Zhang, but it is very unlikely that he leaked confidential information about nuclear weapons, or that the US would ask a source as connected in high level Chinese strategic planning as him about warhead designs. The possibility that Zhang mentioned something to a representative of the United States is more plausible, such as then National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan when the two met in August 2024. Though the meeting was sanctioned by the Chinese government, it is being used to smear Zhang in high level circles now.

The reasons why Zhang Youxia came under public investigation, and why he came under investigation now, are a mystery, but what is known is that he isn’t alone. At the same time as the investigation against him was announced, it was also revealed that Liu Zhenli, who is also a member of the Central Military Commission, was being investigated. Of the other CMC members sworn in in 2023, Li Shangfu was removed in October of that same year, while Miao Hua and He Weidong were removed from service and the Party on October 17th, 2025 after being placed under investigation for corruption. None of them have been replaced, meaning that there are now only two members of the supposedly seven man Central Military Command: Xi Jinping and Zhang Shengmin, who is seen as a “career political officer” and leads the Discipline Inspection Committee, which is responsible for these very anti-corruption investigations. The highest echelon of the People’s Liberation Army, one of the worlds most powerful armies, essentially no longer exists. No one has any idea who will advise Xi Jinping on military matters, or who will take ultimate responsibility in seeing his wishes carried out.

The most significant question is how this impacts the possibility that the People’s Republic of China tries to take Taiwan by force, and there is contention on that topic. The New York Times argued that the purging of so many senior officers may lead to a loss of capacity in the PLA, setting back any plans for major military operations, such as an invasion. Analysts at the Jamestown Foundation theorized that Zhang Youxia had thought that the PLA would not be ready to invade Taiwan when Xi Jinping plans, and that disagreement was the “insubordination” that caused his fall from grace. Only time will tell. American diplomats and officers who met Zhang Youxia described him as standing out from other Chinese generals in terms of his intelligence, confidence, and understanding of military affairs, and that he was probably the single person most capable of giving Xi good advice on military affairs. Who knows what they will think of his successor.