China investigating senior military officials Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhenli, says defense ministry

Highlights:

• General under investigation over discipline, legal violations
• Zhang is Xi's closest ally in People's Liberation Army
• Zhang a key modernising figure in Chinese military
• Diplomats, analysts watching for impact of probe on China's military posture

China's Communist Party has decided to open an investigation into senior military officials Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, China's defense ministry said today (24 January). 

Zhang is a member of the elite Politburo of the ruling Communist Party and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, while Liu is chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, according to the ministry.

Zhang, 75, a veteran moderniser, is widely seen as President Xi Jinping's closest military ally and one of just a few leading officers with combat experience. He is one of two vice-chairmen of the CMC, China's supreme armed forces command organisation.

Crackdown on graft

The military was one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Xi in 2012. That drive reached the upper echelons of the People's Liberation Army in 2023 when the Rocket Force was targeted.

Eight top generals were expelled from the Communist Party on graft charges in October 2025, including the country's number two general, He Weidong. He had served under Xi and alongside Zhang on the Central Military Commission.

Two former defense ministers were also purged from the ruling party in recent years for corruption. The crackdown is slowing procurement of advanced weaponry and hitting the revenues of some of China's biggest defense firms.

Foreign diplomats and security analysts are watching developments closely, given Zhang's closeness to Xi and the importance of the commission's work in terms of command as well as the PLA's ongoing military modernisation and posture.

While China has not fought a war in decades, it is taking an increasingly muscular line in the disputed East China Sea and South China Sea, as well as over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which is claimed by China. Beijing staged the largest military exercises to date around Taiwan late last year.

Zhang's removal is the second of a sitting general on the Central Military Commission since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. He has not been seen in public since 20 November, when he held talks with Russia's defense minister in Moscow.

Earlier that month, Zhang vowed in an article to crack down on "fake loyalty" and "two-faced men" and called on the military to eliminate "poisonous influences and long-standing problems".

Children of civil war veterans

Both Xi and Zhang are from the northwestern province of Shaanxi and are the children of former senior officials who fought together in the 1940s civil war.

Born in Beijing, Zhang joined the army in 1968, rising through the ranks and joining the military commission in late 2012 as the PLA's modernisation drive gathered pace.

A Pentagon profile of Zhang in late 2023 noted that Zhang had been expected to retire in 2022, aged 72, given usual military practice.

"However, Zhang's retention on the CMC for a third term probably reflects Xi's desire to keep a close and experienced ally as his top military adviser," the profile said, contained within the Pentagon's annual report on China's military that year.

He fought Vietnam in a brief but bloody border war in 1979 that China launched in punishment for Vietnam invading Cambodia the previous year and ousting the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge.

Zhang was 26 when he was sent to the front lines to fight the Vietnamese and was quickly promoted, according to state media. He also fought in another border clash with Vietnam in 1984 as the conflict rumbled on.

"During the battle, whether attacking or defending, Zhang Youxia performed excellently," the official China Youth Daily wrote in a 2017 piece entitled, "These Chinese generals have killed the enemy on the battlefield".

Some China scholars have noted that Zhang emerged from the conflict an avowed moderniser in terms of military tactics, weapons and the need for a better trained force.