China investigates top generals Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, marking one of the most serious military purges under Xi Jinping in decades.
Senior Chinese military leaders Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli face investigation in a major shake-up within the PLA leadership (Photo: X)
The Communist Party of China has just taken an almost unheard of step of launching investigations against two of the PLA's highest-ranking uniformed officials and the investigations signal a probable rearranging at the very top of the People's Liberation Army.
Zhang Youxia is no ordinary official, as the first vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission and he stands as the second-highest figure in China's armed forces, right after Xi Jinping. At 75, he's among the elder statesmen still serving actively, kept on beyond the usual retirement limit. Alongside him is Liu Zhenli, 61, who leads joint operations and combat readiness as the head of the Joint Staff Department of the CMC.
Zhang is an accomplished Chinese military leader and ranks second on the Central Military Commission, the governing agency of the People's Liberation Army and he is an influential right-hand man to Chinese President Jinping and has been part of the PLA since 1968, when he participated in the frontier clashes with Vietnam and moved up the ranks to become the PLA chief under Jinping's leadership.
The alarm bells first went off when both men were conspicuously absent from a high-level party seminar led by Xi earlier this week. In China’s opaque politics, the absence of key leaders is often seen as a sign of internal politics at play. Later in the day, the defense ministry confirmed that the country’s top leaders in the Communist Party had approved an investigation into “serious violations of discipline and the law,” which is usually a euphemism for corruption or disloyalty.
Zhang has spent more than five decades in the military. He joined the army in 1968. Between the late 70s and the Vietnam border conflict, Zhang fought along the Vietnam border. He also fought in 1984. These facts render him uniquely qualified among the leadership. He rose through the ranks to command the weapons development section. This section has repeatedly featured prominently in President Xi’s anti-corruption drive.
Since 2012, Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption movement has revolutionized the Chinese military landscape significantly. In fact, in 2023, as part of an intensification of the anti-graft crusade, the Rocket Force found itself in the crosshairs, and by October 2025, eight generals had been dismissed, including CMC Vice-Chairman He Weidong. In addition to this, there are reports of the dismissal of two defense ministers as part of this purge process.
The course of investigation leads us to a critical moment. China is increasing its military pressure around Taiwan and conducting its biggest-ever military exercises near Taiwan and taking a firm stand in South China Sea and East China Sea disputes. Military and strategic analysts are of the view that any signs of instability at the top levels of China's People’s Liberation Army pose a risk of temporarily disrupting China's already-imperfect political and strategic processes at a time when President XI is seeking maximum loyalty before a series of potential flashpoints.
