Why Xi purged China’s top military general

General Zhang Youxia was removed from his position on January 23, leaving one member of China’s military commission. Xi Jinping continues his purge amid internal power struggles and corruption allegations.

Zhang Youxia, a top military general and vice-chairman of the body in overall command of China’s military forces, was removed from office on January 23. His departure means all but one of the seven members of the central military commission (CMC), which is chaired by Chinese president Xi Jinping, have lost their positions in the last three years.

Xi has an established record of purging senior officials. Back at the dawn of his tenure as head of the Chinese Communist party in the early 2010s, there were a series of high-level fellings. Bo Xilai, a fellow politburo member who was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges, was perhaps the most commented on.

But even Zhou Yongkang, a former senior party leader, was taken in under corruption charges in 2013 and expelled from the party. The slogan used by party leadership at the time was that even tigers needed to be afraid, not just flies. There were no exceptions when it came to party loyalty – no one was exempt and no one was safe.

Xi then turned his attention to the party’s armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which has been undergoing a series of abrupt personnel changes in recent years. In mid-2023, the then-minister of defence, Li Shangfu, disappeared from public view before being removed from office. This was followed by the removal of a number of senior military figures, largely on corruption claims.

The formal announcement of Zhang being under investigation was issued in the official party newspaper, the People’s Daily. He was accused with fellow CMC member Liu Zhenli of having severely fuelled political and corruption problems that threaten the party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces. It has thus led to external speculation of power struggles and internal fights.

No one really knows what is happening in the inner circle of Chinese leadership at the moment. It is a largely watertight place. Stories of Zhang leaking nuclear secrets to the US and plotting a coup against Xi that led to a gunfight in Beijing thus need to be treated with a great deal of scepticism. What is less contentious is the claim that the PLA is afflicted with ongoing structural issues.

Zhang is in his seventies and is one of the very few senior military figures in China with actual combat experience, having served in the war against Vietnam in the late 1970s. He is also reportedly a native of an area near to where Xi’s family hailed from in the Shaanxi province of north-west China. This has been given as reason for the claim that the two are long-term friends.

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