Showdown at the Chinese top: Xi Jinping doesn't trust the generals

A corruption scandal is shaking the top brass of China's military. It was announced over the weekend that one of the two vice-chairmen of the powerful Central Military Commission, Zhang Yuxiao, and another high-ranking general, Liu Zhenli, are being investigated for "serious disciplinary violations." In Chinese propaganda terminology, this means that both have been removed from their posts for corruption.

The Central Military Commission is the joint supreme command of all branches of the Chinese armed forces: the Army, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, Military Police, Cyber ​​Army, and the People's Militia as a reserve. Its chairman is Xi Jinping, who also holds the positions of President of China and General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party. Of the three positions, the leadership of the Military Commission is considered the most powerful.

This is what the founder of the state, Mao Zedong, believed: political power comes from the barrel of a gun. That is why in 2005, then-President Jiang Zemin handed over control of the Military Commission to his successor, Hu Jintao, with considerable delay – six months after he had stepped down from his remaining two posts.

General with war experience

General Zhang is the only one of the leading trio who has risen from a private to the highest rank in the armed forces. He joined the army in 1968, when he was 18. He commanded a regiment in 1979 and 1984 and, like the other dismissed general, Liu Zhenli, participated in the border war against Vietnam. After the victory, he was decorated. He later served as the supreme commander of the army in northeast China, before taking a leading position at the headquarters in Beijing.

“The case is quite surprising,” said political scientist Jing-yu Lin of Taiwan’s Tamkang University. “The Military Commission now has no one with war experience in its leadership. That’s problematic.” President Xi and the second deputy in the leadership are political officers of sorts with no combat experience.

Zhang, 75, is both a military delegate and a member of the party's top leadership, the 25-member Politburo. He was likely a favorite of Xi Jinping, as his promotion deviates from normal practice. He was due to retire in 2022 at the age of 72, but there is also a family connection: Zhang's father served alongside Xi's father and is from the same province.

Clearly broken trust

“Now Xi Jinping clearly doesn’t trust him anymore,” says political scientist Lin. “All the speculation about why Zhang fell from grace – whether it was corruption, bribery or even accusations of spying for foreign intelligence services, as reported by the US media – doesn’t matter if the trust is gone. If it’s gone, then the crime is just a formality.”

Xi, Lin believes, wants to reshape the leadership structure. Political officers have already been disciplined, and disloyalty has been punished. Now the generals have come into his focus. As early as October, Chinese authorities announced that they were launching a corruption investigation against nine military officials. China has not fought a war in decades, but it is increasingly demonstrating military strength, especially with naval maneuvers along its Pacific coast, to suppress a strong US presence. China's military spending in 2025 amounted to 220 billion euros.