China's Top General Falls: Inside Xi Jinping's Hollow Military Purge

OTTAWA/LOS ANGELES — The weekend delivered a jolt from Beijing that underscores a theme Chris Meyer and I have explored across multiple podcast discussions: Xi Jinping’s regime can look strong yet be brittle.

China’s Defence Ministry says it has opened investigations into senior military figures including Gen. Zhang Youxia, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission—an escalation that is shaking the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army and fuelling fresh questions, inside and outside China, about whether this is an anti-corruption purge, a political power struggle, or both.

On Saturday, Chinese state media reported that Zhang is under investigation for alleged “serious violations” of Party discipline and state law. But as Chris Meyer argues in this episode, the announcement may be only the visible edge of a much larger rupture unfolding inside China’s opaque military and political system.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Zhang is accused of leaking information related to China’s nuclear weapons program to the United States and accepting bribes, including in connection with a senior promotion. The Journal said the allegations were raised during a closed-door briefing held Saturday morning with senior officers, shortly before the formal announcement.

As Chris and I note in this episode, those WSJ claims—sourced to internal Communist Party accounts—may not ultimately be borne out, and could even serve Xi’s interests as a narrative frame. What is clear is that Zhang sits at the apex of the Party’s military command structure, and his reported downfall signals an extraordinary level of turmoil at the top.

Chris and I also discuss the obvious: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new strategic engagement with Beijing, already questionable to many critics of China’s hybrid warfare efforts in the West and especially targeting Canada, now looks increasingly dubious as questions hover over the stability of Xi’s regime.

As Meyer explains in the episode, social media and dissident sources have circulated dramatic claims about what really happened. According to these accounts, there was a planned operation to arrest Xi Jinping at an elite CCP leaders’ hotel on the outskirts of Beijing around January 18th. Meyer heard reports that approximately 20 people—split between Xi loyalists and Zhang faction members—were killed in a confrontation when Xi received advance warning and turned the tables on Zhang.

There is no verified evidence of violence, mass arrests beyond senior officers, or an active coup attempt. Claims of shootings and widespread detentions remain unconfirmed and trace back to social media posts and opposition-linked outlets. Analysts caution that China’s opaque political system often fuels speculation, and such reports should be treated carefully until independently confirmed.

What we do know is that China’s military command structure is in unprecedented disarray. Whether this represents a foiled coup or an anti-corruption purge, the result is the same: China’s military leadership has been gutted. As Meyer outlines in the episode, since Xi came to power in 2012, he has systematically installed loyalists throughout the PLA’s top ranks. Now, those same appointees have been systematically removed.

The Central Military Commission has been left almost entirely vacant, with only Xi and Zhang Shengmin, who heads the anti-corruption committee, remaining. Every uniformed commander appointed to the commission in 2022 has been removed.

The purge extends beyond Zhang. Since summer 2023, more than 50 senior officers and defense industry executives have been ousted. In October 2024 alone, nine generals were dismissed, including another vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. The Communist Party expelled He Weidong, the other vice chair of the commission, in October 2024.

Meyer notes that PLA Daily published a series of articles in December 2024—one per week—that were highly critical of Xi Jinping. Zhang was urging the civil servant class that opposed Xi to get involved, according to Meyer.

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