The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) top general is being investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, the Defense Ministry said in January 2026. Zhang Youxia, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, is the latest figure to fall in a long-running purge of military officials. Zhang, 75, joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1968 and is a general from its ground forces.
Analysts believe the purges are designed both to reform the military and to ensure loyalty to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, who also chairs the military commission. They are part of a broader anticorruption drive that has punished more than 200,000 officials since Xi came to power in 2012.
Another member of the commission, Liu Zhenli, also is being investigated by the CCP, a Defense Ministry statement said. Liu is the chief of staff of the commission’s Joint Staff Department. The commission is the top military body in China. The statement did not provide any details on the alleged wrongdoing.
The CCP expelled the other vice chair of the commission, He Weidong, in October and replaced him with commission member Zhang Shengmin. In 2024, the party expelled two former defense ministers over corruption charges.
The United States released a new National Defense Strategy in January acknowledging the CCP as a military power that it said needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies. “This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle,” the strategy said. “Rather, a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible.”