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Gen. Zhang Youxia is 1 of China’s fewer apical subject officers with combat experience. He joined the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) successful 2007, and successful 2012, helium was appointed to the Central Military Commission (CMC), the country’s highest subject decision-making body. In 2017, helium entered the Politburo, the 24-member assemblage that oversees some the enactment and the cardinal government, and was elevated to the second-ranked Vice Chairman of the CMC. In 2022, arsenic President Xi Jinping began a 3rd word pursuing a law amendment, Gen. Zhang retained his presumption connected the CMC and was promoted to first-ranked Vice Chairman, the country’s highest-ranking subject officer. Even arsenic respective elder subject officers were removed successful caller years amid a widening “anti-corruption” crackdown, Gen. Zhang, wide seen arsenic having adjacent ties to Mr. Xi, seemed unaffected.
On January 24, China’s Ministry of National Defence stunned observers erstwhile it announced that Gen. Zhang and Liu Zhenli, different subordinate of the CMC and Chief of Staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, were nether probe “for suspected superior subject and instrumentality violations”. The determination to spot them “under probe was made by the CPC Central Committee,” stated the Ministry successful a statement.
An editorial successful the PLA Daily, the authoritative mouthpiece of the People’s Liberation Army, declared that “in the combat against corruption, nary spot is retired of bounds, nary crushed is near unturned, and nary tolerance is allowed”. Zhang and Liu, according to the editorial, “have gravely betrayed the spot placed successful them by the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, and earnestly trampled connected and undermined the strategy of eventual work resting with the CMC president [Xi Jinping]”. It added: “They person severely fuelled governmental and corruption problems that endanger the Party’s implicit enactment implicit the equipped forces and undermine the Party’s governance foundation.”
The princeling General
Zhang Youxia, calved successful 1950 successful Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, is simply a princeling similar Xi Jinping — the descendents of China’s founding revolutionaries. His begetter Zhang Zongxun fought alongside Mr. Xi’s begetter Xi Zhongxun during China’s civilian war. Mr. Zhang joined the PLA successful 1968 and gained uncommon combat acquisition during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war. He became a Major General successful 1997 and the commandant of the PLA’s Shenyang Military Region, which shares a borderline with North Korea and Russia, successful 2007. In the aforesaid year, helium was appointed to the Central Committee of the enactment erstwhile Hu Jintao was the President. In 2011, helium became a General. A twelvemonth later, Gen. Zhang was appointed the caput of the PLA General Armaments Department, a presumption that placed him astatine the centre of China’s subject modernisation drive, initiated by the caller leader, Xi Jinping.
Mr. Xi launched a sweeping anti-corruption thrust aimed astatine rooting retired corruption and favouritism wrong the PLA’s apical ranks. He besides overhauled the military’s bid structure, centralising power and authorization successful his ain hands. Several elder officers person fallen to the crackdown, peculiarly aft Mr. Xi assumed his 3rd term. Those sacked since 2022 see Li Yuchao, the commandant of China’s Rocket Force, and his lawman Liu Guangbin and erstwhile lawman Zhang Zhenzhong.
Disagreements with Xi
When the existent CMC began its word successful 2022, it comprised 7 members: Xi Jinping (Chairman); Zhang Youxia (Vice Chairman); He Weidong (Vice Chairman); Li Shangfu (Defence Minister); Liu Zhenli (Chief of the Joint Staff Department); Miao Hua (Director of the Political Work Department); and Zhang Shengmin (Secretary of the Military’s subject commission). Of these, lone 2 person remained successful their positions unaffected by the anti-corruption drive—President Xi himself and Zhang Shengmin, the subject czar who was promoted to the fertile of Vice Chairman successful October 2025.
While authoritative statements and enactment mouthpieces connection fewer details astir the probe into Gen. Zhang, an investigation of authoritative statements by the Jamestown Foundation, a U.S.-based deliberation tank, argued that disagreements with Mr. Xi implicit PLA improvement and grooming were the origin of the General’s downfall. “Zhang Youxia’s timeline for PLA associated operations grooming did not align with Xi Jinping’s 2027 deadline for the PLA to beryllium susceptible of invading Taiwan,” K. Tristan Tang wrote successful Jamestown. “His force-building docket besides focused connected less priorities and placed little accent than Xi connected subject conflict arsenic a standalone objective, alternatively integrating it into grooming activities.”
