By Jia Feimao | 2026-02-06

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has purged Gen. Zhang Youxia, his most senior uniformed deputy and for years a central component of the Communist Party's grip over the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The government announced the general's removal from the Central Military Commission (CMC) in late January.

The move leaves the CMC, China's top military command body, with a hollowed-out leadership structure and a thinning cohort of senior officers, according to analysts who track the PLA's promotions and purges.

A February 2 front-page editorial in the PLA Daily, the Chinese military's official newspaper, cast Zhang's removal as a campaign to protect party control and raise combat effectiveness. The "resolute investigation and punishment" of Zhang and fellow senior officer Liu Zhenli will "remove roadblocks" and "squeezes out the water diluting combat effectiveness," it said.

Zhang Youxia's background elevated the purge beyond mere anti-graft theater. At 75, he was one of the few senior PLA figures with actual combat experience, having fought against Vietnam in the late 1970s. Such credentials became a rarity with the passage of time and gave him exceptional stature within the ranks.

Only 2 CMC members remain

The institutional change is stark. The CMC, a seven-member body, now has only two members still standing: Xi, who chairs it, and Zhang Shengmin, the vice chairman. The latter is responsible for discipline and loyalty but has no authority over military operations. Xi promoted him to the vice chairmanship in 2025, the Times reported.

The purge amplifies a broader leadership squeeze at the top of the force. "China had at least 30 generals and admirals at the start of 2023 who ran specialized departments and theater commands," the Times said. It could identify only seven generals who still have active roles after a succession of removals and investigations.

Repeated sackings can carry political costs for Xi, Dennis Wilder, a former Central Intelligence Agency China analyst now at Georgetown University in Washington, told Bloomberg. "I think all these purges really do hurt Xi Jinping within the party," he said.

Implications for Taiwan

While leadership upheaval may drive the PLA toward strategic caution, it could simultaneously trigger tactical aggression against Taiwan, Lin Ying-yu, an associate professor at Tamkang University in New Taipei, Taiwan, suggested.

To signal their loyalty and competence to Xi, promotion-hungry officers may increase incursions into the airspace and waters around Taiwan.

China considers Taiwan its territory and has repeatedly threatened to seize it.

"These tactical moves are designed for an audience of one," Lin told Focus, adding they could be theater rather than "genuine combat preparation."

Internal disruptions could delay any earnest move on Taiwan, Shen Ming-shih, a researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told Focus. The likeliest window would fall before the end of Xi's fourth term, which Shen said could run through 2032.

Turmoil in the upper ranks will "have a negative near-term effect on PLA combat readiness," the Lowy Institute in Sydney said in agreement with Shen.

Executing a Taiwan campaign will require close coordination across multiple commands and departments, and replacements will need time to learn their roles, it said.

Trust faded away

One reading of Zhang's downfall centers on trust. In their February 2 Foreign Affairs essay "Xi the Destroyer," Jonathan A. Czin and John Culver trace the duo's connection back to their fathers' civil war-era ties, identifying Zhang as Xi's closest military confidant. By allowing Zhang to stay past retirement age in 2022 and promoting him to the military's highest office, Xi signaled a level of confidence that has now vanished.

At some point, Xi decided Zhang had to go. The firing underscores Xi's scorched-earth management style, wrote Czin and Culver. Even if leaders rarely show mercy to enemies, "it is quite another for him to be so pitiless with his friends."

Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at King's College London, explained why Zhang's stature may have become a liability. In a January piece for The Conversation, Brown noted rumors that Xi and Zhang "had disagreed on specific issues" and cited a fitting aphorism: "there can never be two tigers on the same mountain."

Purge may continue

As Xi approaches a sensitive political calendar, the purge may signal that turbulence in the PLA's top ranks is not finished. "Xi's bruising power struggle will continue toward the Communist Party's 21st national congress in 2027, where he is expected to seek re-election for a fourth term as party chief," Nikkei Asia columnist Katsuji Nakazawa wrote in February.

The downfall of Zhang and Liu has, as the Times noted, "stripped the [CMC] of leaders who prepare forces for battle" and leaves a critical void in operational expertise. This upheaval brings Xi back to a persistent challenge: whether he can finally produce a military that meets his "unforgiving standards of party loyalty and operational proficiency," as Czin and Culver phrased it.