‘Xi trusts nobody’: Purge of China’s military claims its top general

Singapore: China’s top general is being investigated for “grave violations of discipline and the law”, marking a dramatic escalation in President Xi Jinping’s sweeping purge of military officials and a consolidation of his power over the army.

The accusations against Zhang Youxia, vice chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, the party’s supreme military decision-making body, were announced by China’s National Defence Ministry.

In a brief statement, the ministry announced that another top general and commission member, Liu Zhenli, who leads the military’s Joint Staff Department, was also under investigation. The statement did not provide details of the generals’ alleged wrongdoing.

Since 2023, Xi has ramped up corruption investigations, which have heavily targeted top military brass, including his hand-picked generals and those thought to be his allies.

While experts say corruption has been an endemic problem in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the purges have also served Xi’s aims in securing total control over the military and rooting out potential disloyalty fermenting in the ranks.

“Xi taking down even Zhang Youxia means Xi trusts nobody,” says Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, based in Taiwan.

“Xi has no rivals that can or dare challenge him either inside the party or in the military.”

In the Chinese system, an official investigation is usually a foregone conclusion that seals the downfall of its target.

Zhang’s ouster in particular has shocked China experts. Xi and Zhang have known each other since childhood and their fathers fought alongside each other during the communist revolution in the 1940s.

With Zhang and Liu now gone, the Central Military Commission has been whittled down through purges from seven members to just two – Xi, as chair – and one other general, Zhang Shengmin.

“This move is unprecedented in the history of the Chinese military and represents the total annihilation of the high command,” Christopher K. Johnson, a former CIA analyst who follows Chinese elite politics, told The New York Times.

Xi’s crackdown on party and military officials is unmatched in scale since the Mao Zedong era, and includes the expulsion of two former defence ministers from the party in 2024, as well as the removal of dozens of other high-ranking officers in recent years.

It has invariably fuelled speculation about Xi’s faith in the PLA’s capabilities and whether it is sufficiently prepared to fight and win a war to control Taiwan by 2027 — a goal US defence officials believe Xi has set for the military, but is not necessarily a deadline.

“This means China’s military cannot fight, as it has a broken chain of command and relative absence of warfighting-related experience and expertise at the top level,” Sung said.

“This may mean China is in no rush to start a major war with anybody anytime soon, including against Taiwan in 2027.”

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