China's highest-ranking general is suspected of leaking information about the country's nuclear weapons program to the US and of taking bribes in return for promoting senior officers, including a former defense minister, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The report followed Beijing's official announcement a day earlier that it had opened an investigation into Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and another senior officer.
Zhang, 75, serves as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the body that oversees China's armed forces and is chaired by President Xi Jinping. He is also a member of the Politburo, the Communist Party's top decision-making body. Widely regarded as Xi's closest ally at the apex of the military, Zhang and Xi share similar backgrounds as "princelings," the sons of senior party officials. Also under investigation is Gen. Liu Zhenli, 61, head of the Joint Staff Department, a position roughly equivalent to chief of staff.
According to the report, a special briefing was held on Saturday morning with the participation of senior officers in the Chinese military, during which grave allegations against Zhang were presented. These included building political influence networks that undermined party unity, abusing his authority on the Central Military Commission, and accepting vast sums of money in exchange for promoting rivals in tenders within the military procurement system. The most shocking allegation revealed at the briefing, however, was that Zhang had leaked key technical data on China's nuclear weapons to the US.
Some of the evidence, the report said, emerged from an investigation opened last Monday into Gu Jun, the former chief executive of the China National Nuclear Corporation, a state-owned company overseeing all aspects of China's civilian and military nuclear programs. The probe into Gu exposed Zhang's alleged connection to a security breach in the nuclear industry.
The briefing also revealed that Zhang is accused of taking bribes in exchange for promoting former Defense Minister Li Shangfu. Li disappeared from public view in 2023, was removed from his post and the following year was expelled from the Communist Party on corruption charges. The case is part of the broader purge Xi has been leading at the top of the military. According to The Wall Street Journal, since the summer of 2023 more than 50 senior officers and defense industry executives have been ousted. In October alone, nine generals were dismissed, including another vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Xi came to power in 2012 and has become the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong, portraying corruption and disloyalty as existential threats to the party.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Xi set up a special investigative team to examine Zhang's tenure as commander of the military region in China's northeast between 2007 and 2012. The team traveled to the city of Shenyang and chose to stay in local hotels rather than military bases, out of concern that the senior officer maintained a network of supporters who could interfere with the investigation. Authorities also reportedly confiscated mobile devices from officers promoted alongside and by the two senior generals under suspicion. Thousands of additional officers linked to them could now find themselves drawn into the probe.
If Zhang is indeed removed, he would become the highest-ranking officer expelled from the Chinese military since the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. It would also mark the first time since that year that two Politburo members are removed during the same term. Of the seven members of the body appointed in 2022, only two would remain: Xi himself as chairman and one vice chairman.
In the West, the purges are sometimes portrayed as part of Xi's efforts to modernize the Chinese military. According to US intelligence assessments, Xi has ordered the People's Liberation Army to be ready by 2027 to carry out a successful invasion of Taiwan, a year that also marks the centenary of the PLA's founding. However, according to a Pentagon assessment published in December, the pace and scale of the coming dismissals could undermine the Chinese military's operational capabilities in the short term.
