Xi Drains the Central Military Commission
The fall of Zhang Youxia suggests that professional dissent has become a liability in China’s top military ranks.
By: Victoria Herczegh
The announcement followed days of speculation after both men were conspicuously absent from a high-level party seminar presided over by President Xi Jinping.
A Politburo member, Zhang was the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the People’s Liberation Army and second only to Xi within the CMC.
He and Liu were the only CMC members with actual combat experience, having fought in the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts of the late 1970s and 1980s.
With their removals, nearly the entire CMC formed after the 20th Party Congress in 2022 has now been purged, leaving Zhang Shengmin, the PLA’s discipline chief, as the sole uniformed member.
Such a situation is without precedent in the post-Mao era.
Even Xi’s earlier military purges, including the downfall of two former CMC vice chairmen in 2015 and the removal of two defense ministers since 2023, did not empty out the top military command so completely.
The only historical parallel lies in the early Cultural Revolution, when the CMC effectively disappeared from public view between 1966 and 1971.
Therefore, rather than being just another in a long string of recent corruption cases, this event marks a structural rupture within China’s military system.
Since Xi took office in 2012, he has placed exceptional trust in Zhang Youxia.
Zhang was crucial to the PLA’s modernization drive, first serving as head of the CMC’s Equipment Development Department and later as vice chairman overseeing operational command.
He also played a decisive role in executing Xi’s 2015 military reforms, which dismantled the Soviet-style, army-centric command structure and replaced it with joint theater commands designed for modern warfare.
Xi elevated Zhang to second-ranked CMC vice chairman in 2017, then broke age norms in 2022 by naming the then-72-year-old Zhang as China’s senior general.
(Top politicians generally retire around the age of 68-70, with Xi himself being a rare exception.)
As for Liu Zhenli, his role complemented Zhang’s.
As chief of the Joint Staff Department, Liu oversaw joint operations planning, exercises and operational readiness, the core functions required for any conflict around Taiwan.
His career trajectory, including command of the PLA Ground Force and service in the People’s Armed Police, placed him at the center of China’s evolving joint command system.
Officially, Zhang and Liu have been accused of corruption and failing to rein in their associates.
Such charges are plausible, since corruption – particularly the buying and selling of promotions – has long been deeply rooted within the PLA.
Xi’s own anti-corruption campaign has punished nearly 1 million officials annually, often charging them with offenses related to military procurement and promotions.
Yet corruption alone does not explain the scale or timing of the purge.
What makes this case different is the explicit political language used in official indictments.
Zhang and Liu were accused not only of corruption but also of undermining the “CMC chairman responsibility system” and weakening the party’s absolute leadership over the military.
This accusation suggests political or ideological defiance, or, at least, professional resistance interpreted by Xi as disloyalty.
A couple of juicy rumors about Zhang can almost certainly be dismissed.
First, if he were guilty of leaking nuclear secrets to the United States, as unnamed sources have told Western media, then he would likely already be dead, not under investigation.
The Chinese Communist Party’s centralized control over foreign military contacts, and Zhang’s own limited foreign interactions, also make such unilateral disclosures implausible.
Second, when Xi disappeared from public view for nearly two weeks in May and June 2025, there were rumors that Zhang used his absence to consolidate his own power base within the PLA.
For example, several senior generals were removed, and Xi’s name was temporarily absent from articles published in CCP-linked outlets.
No real evidence ever surfaced to suggest that there was some sort of plot to overthrow Xi, and Xi soon reappeared in full control.
A likelier explanation for Zhang’s downfall is simple civil-military disagreement.
For one thing, Zhang did not see eye to eye with Xi regarding the timeline and method for preparing a Taiwan operation, as evidenced by official PLA publications, Five-Year Plan documents and public speeches.
Xi has insisted that the PLA must be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027, a politically symbolic date tied to the PLA’s centenary.
Achieving this would require mature joint operational capability, something the PLA has struggled to implement.
Zhang, by contrast, has repeatedly emphasized fixing long-standing training deficiencies before accelerating joint operations.
When he discussed modernization priorities in late 2025, he anticipated full joint operational capability closer to 2035, which aligns more closely with the PLA’s traditional tempo.
Zhang and Liu’s purge highlights an important pattern throughout Xi’s rule: Personal loyalty does not guarantee survival.
The investigations of Qin Gang, Liu Yuan, Wang Qishan and now Zhang Youxia all illustrate the same rule.
Xi values loyalty, but he values absolute authority more.
In civil-military terms, Zhang represented something Xi could not tolerate: an alternative figure of professional authority with real combat experience and institutional credibility.
Even if Zhang was loyal in intent, his resistance to Xi’s timeline equaled political defiance in Xi’s framework.
In the short term, this purge damages command cohesion and morale.
Networks of trust have been disrupted, experienced commanders removed and political fear reinforced.
The absence of combat experience at the CMC level is significant, but the PLA remains capable of routine operations.
Joint combat readiness patrols around Taiwan have continued without noticeable disruption.
Institutional stability ensures that exercises, deployments and gray-zone activities proceed largely as planned.
Strategically, the likelihood of a near-term invasion of Taiwan remains low, as complex joint operations require experienced commanders who trust one another – exactly what the purge has undermined.
A failed invasion would be catastrophic for Xi.
However, there is a possibility that the purge will produce more aggressive tactical behavior, as new commanders eager to demonstrate loyalty may favor quick and attention-grabbing action over professional caution.
This increases the risk of miscalculation, even as it decreases the likelihood of a full-scale war.
Having eliminated Zhang, whose opposing views and growing support base within the PLA became a threat, Xi almost certainly remains in control.
However, he achieved that control by making a less-than-ideal choice: He further exposed the depth of corruption in the PLA, left the CMC with barely any sitting members, and revealed a serious level of mistrust between the nation’s political leadership and military professionals.
Whether this strengthens China’s long-term military effectiveness or only solidifies a culture of fear remains uncertain.
What is clear is that the party remains in a position of absolute power, but at a cost.
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