Investigation into Xi’s closest military ally rattles China’s top brass

BEIJING – General Zhang Youxia, the highest-ranking military ally of President Xi Jinping, is under investigation for "serious violations of discipline and law," the Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced Saturday.

Zhang serves as the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), a position that makes him the second-highest official in the military chain of command behind Xi.

The ministry also confirmed that General Liu Zhenli, the Chief of Staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, is also being investigated. An editorial in the People's Liberation Army Daily stated that both generals had "seriously betrayed the trust" of the Communist Party and the CMC.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Zhang is accused of accepting bribes and leaking information regarding China’s nuclear weapons program to the United States.

At 75, Zhang had been retained in the military leadership well past the typical retirement age, reflecting the high level of trust he previously held. He remains one of the few senior officers with direct combat experience, having served in the 1979 border war with Vietnam.

The investigations are the latest developments in Xi’s broad anti-corruption campaign. The crackdown previously targeted the military’s Rocket Force in 2023 and led to the purging of eight senior generals in October 2025.

The apparent sidelining of General Zhang Youxia, long considered President Xi Jinping’s most steadfast military confidant, signals a profound deepening of instability within the high command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Far from a routine anti-corruption maneuver, this upheaval raises fundamental questions regarding Xi’s executive judgment and suggests a widening fracture within his innermost sanctum of power.

The erosion of the Central Military Commission (CMC) is now near-total. Of the seven members elevated to the body in 2022, only Xi himself and a senior anti-corruption official remain unscathed. This systematic dismantling of the military hierarchy has fostered a climate of pervasive fear and institutional paralysis. Such internal distrust threatens to cripple decision-making processes at a critical juncture, particularly as Beijing navigates high-stakes flashpoints in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

For regional security analysts, the removal of Zhang is particularly significant due to his rare operational pedigree. As one of the few remaining senior officers with actual combat experience—having served in the 1979 and 1984 border conflicts with Vietnam—Zhang provided a pragmatic counterweight to ideological fervor. His firsthand understanding of the costs of war was instrumental in shaping the PLA’s modernization and maintaining a realistic assessment of military risk.

The loss of such a seasoned voice leaves a leadership vacuum that may be filled by officers with less realistic views on the complexities of armed conflict. While the current internal turmoil may temporarily dampen the PLA’s external aggression, a besieged and insecure military leadership is inherently more volatile. Ultimately, this purge risks producing a high command that is both less tethered to the realities of the battlefield and more dangerously unpredictable in its strategic calculus.

For many Vietnamese Americans, particularly the elders across Little Saigon, the downfall of a high-ranking Chinese general who fought in the 1979 border war is a stark historical reminder. That conflict was a watershed event, one that solidified a lasting sense of vigilance toward China within the community. Whether shared in phở restaurants or discussed in the quiet moments of the nail salon industry, this news revives memories of a chapter often ignored by Western historians. Even for those focused on the future—navigating the complexities of F2B family sponsorships, H-1B pathways, or EB-5 investments—these echoes of 1979 serve as a reminder that for the diaspora, history remains a living, breathing influence on the present.