BEIJING, September 26 — China’s ruling Politburo has expelled two of the country’s most senior military leaders, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, from the Communist Party and from the armed forces, according to Reuters, the latest phase of the anti-corruption campaign President Xi Jinping has driven since taking power in 2012. Zhang had long been seen as Xi’s closest military ally.
He served as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the body that sits atop China’s defense command, and he was the son of a close friend of Xi’s father — a lineage that made his fall all the more striking. Liu also held a senior military post.
The investigations into both men were first unveiled in January 2026, but formal punishments have yet to be revealed. China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A purge that reaches the top of the command
The timing matters. The expulsions land as Beijing presses ahead with a military modernization drive and expands deployments around Taiwan and contested waters in the South and East China Seas. Diplomats and security analysts say the purges may have dented China’s war-fighting readiness, even as they appear to have tightened Xi’s grip on the one institution the party cannot afford to lose.
Analysts note that dozens of second-line officers have moved into key posts across the CMC, the theater commands and the individual services. Five seats remain vacant on the CMC’s ruling seven-person committee.
James Char, a Singapore-based scholar of Chinese security, said Xi’s hand has been further strengthened by the removal of proteges of Zhang and of Miao Hua, formerly the military’s top uniformed political officer. “We can expect Xi to continue exercising decisive control and influence over China’s military affairs — and by extension, his dominance over the party-state, since whoever controls the People’s Liberation Army controls the party,” Char said.
Tian Shichen, president of the Chinese think tank Global Governance Institution, offered the official line: “Eradicating corrupt elements strengthens, rather than weakens, the political foundation, cohesion, and overall combat effectiveness of the armed forces.”
Combat experience lost, questions over Taiwan
Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has been described as one of the most extensive in modern Chinese history, prompting descriptions of him as the most powerful leader since founding figure Mao Zedong. Millions within the bureaucracy have been investigated to varying degrees, with scores of senior party, government and military officials also investigated and purged. Zhang’s departure carries a particular weight.
He was the most senior officer with actual combat experience, gained in a brief but bloody border war with Vietnam in 1979 — the last time China engaged in real fighting. That history is not incidental in a force that has spent decades preparing for a conflict it has not recently fought.
The extensive replacement of military brass means China maintains its current defense posture, continuing weapons tests and increasingly complex exercises. But questions linger over the impact of the purges on China’s ability to wage war, particularly over Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing regards as its own territory — a sovereignty claim Taipei strongly objects to.
Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser on China at London’s Tony Blair Institute, said it “is hard to imagine upheaval on this scale wouldn’t create issues for more complex operations — including a full-scale Taiwan contingency,” though she noted the PLA had insulated routine operations from the turmoil. “But Xi clearly sees short-term disruption as a price worth paying for long-term discipline and combat readiness,” Osman added.
What to watch next: the formal punishments still owed to Zhang and Liu, and who Xi names to the five vacant seats on the CMC’s seven-person committee. Regional military attaches are watching both closely.
