![\"Zhang](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023d3e1-614.jpg\"\/)
\nZhang Youxia (C) and Xi Jinping ave known each other all their lives<\/p>\n
A sweeping purge of China’s senior generals is raising questions about the country\u2019s internal volatility as well as fears of a military miscalculation.<\/p>\n
It comes during a stream of visits by Western leaders – including Ireland – to deepen ties with Beijing as relations with Washington sour, in a pivot which one analyst described as “strategically myopic”.<\/p>\n
For Wen-Ti Sung, senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council, the dismissal of vice chairman of the Chinese Military Commission (CMC) Zhang Youxia and General Liu Zhenli for “violations of discipline and law” indicates further concentration of power in the hands of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
“Xi has no rivals that can or dare challenge him either inside the party or in the military,” he told RT\u00c9 News.<\/p>\n
But that also means the Chinese leader “trusts no one and has (almost) no one to trust”, he said.<\/p>\n
The CMC is China\u2019s supreme military command, which oversees the army, navy, air force, nuclear arsenal, police and militia.<\/p>\n
Xi Jinping sits atop as chairman.<\/p>\n
This latest purge means the command\u2019s original seven members have been whittled down to just two: Xi Jinping and the Disciplinary Chief Zhang Shengmin, who surely can\u2019t be feeling too comfortable at the moment.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t new, of course.<\/p>\n
President Xi has carried out extensive purges throughout his 13-year-rule.<\/p>\n
Early on, he identified rampant corruption as a threat to the party\u2019s legitimacy.<\/p>\n
He launched the ‘Tigers and Flies’ campaign to target both high ranking officials and low-level cadres accused of enriching themselves during China\u2019s boom years.<\/p>\n
Mr Xi\u2019s drive to root out graft also served the twin purpose of neutralising any opposition to his growing power.<\/p>\n
Millions of Chinese officials were investigated and punished, with the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) seen as a stubborn hotbed of corruption.<\/p>\n
“Ranks and promotions were routinely up for sale and bribery was rampant,” a report from the Berlin-based China think tank MERICS found last year.<\/p>\n
\nZhang Youxia (C) and Xi Jinping ave known each other all their lives<\/p>\n
Ongoing purges suggested Mr Xi\u2019s initial push to clean up the endemic corruption within the military failed, the study found, and that he remained “unsure of the PLA\u2019s leadership and their commitment to the party and its goals”.<\/p>\n
But the defenestration of general Zhang Youxia surprised many because he was not only the most senior general in China\u2019s army, but he was also a combat veteran from China\u2019s wars with Vietnam – a rare commodity in China.<\/p>\n
He is also what is known in China as “a princeling” – a descendant of the senior Communist Party revolutionary leaders, just like Mr Xi.<\/p>\n
Their fathers Xi Zhongxun and Zhang Zongxun fought alongside each other in the same military unit during the communist revolution.<\/p>\n
So, the younger Mr Xi and Mr Zhang have known each other all their lives and were thought to be close allies.<\/p>\n
Members of this “red nobility” hold unrivalled power, influence and wealth within the Chinese regime.<\/p>\n
Until, that is, they are disposed of.<\/p>\n
An article in the People\u2019s Liberation Army Daily last weekend accused Mr Zhang and Mr Liu of “grave betrayal” of the trust placed in them by the Communist Party\u2019s Central Committee.<\/p>\n
They “seriously trampled on and undermined the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the CMC chairman”, the editorial said.<\/p>\n
These carefully chosen words suggested to Shanshan Mei, political scientist with a US-based global policy think tank RAND Corporation, that it was a “political and personal” infraction or disloyalty.<\/p>\n
“He has crossed the line in Xi’s eyes,” she told RT\u00c9 News, adding “we just don’t know what that line is”.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/001ddeed-614.jpg\"\/)
\nA PLA Navy boat sails past tourists in 2023 on Pingtan island, which is the closest point to Taiwan<\/p>\n
Internal Chinese politics are often described as a “black box” with analysts left reading tealeaves for clues as to what\u2019s really going on.<\/p>\n
Reports of a coup attempt or accusations that Mr Zhang was caught giving nuclear secrets to the Americans, were therefore taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n
The question on everyone\u2019s mind, though, is how this latest sweep affects China\u2019s plans to unify the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan with the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n
Mr Xi has set a deadline of 2027 for the army to be capable of seizing the island militarily, according to US intelligence assessments.<\/p>\n
One theory on Mr Zhang\u2019s demise is that he did not think the PLA would be ready to invade Taiwan by the deadline and that displeased the chairman.<\/p>\n
General Zhang\u2019s removal means China\u2019s military has a broken chain of command and relative absence of warfighting know how at the top level, Mr Sung said.<\/p>\n
“This should mean China is in no rush to start a major war with anybody anytime soon,” he said.<\/p>\n
But there is also no one left with the stature to advise Mr Xi to think again in the event he decides to throw caution to the wind and take a gamble on Taiwan, he added.<\/p>\n
“Without Zhang, Beijing\u2019s military policy has a lot less capacity for course correction,” he added.<\/p>\n
And although Taiwan remains in sharp focus – China has intensified its war games around the island in recent weeks – it is not the only flashpoint in the region.<\/p>\n
“What if something tricky happens [during a routine training exercise in] South China Sea, the China\/India border, or even Burma, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, North Korea,” said Shanshan Mei.<\/p>\n
She added: “Who is going to advise Xi at this point?<\/p>\n
“I am concerned.”<\/p>\n
Velina Tchakarova of FACE geopolitical risk consultancy, which is based in Vienna is Austria, agreed.<\/p>\n
“When purges reach the level of senior commanders responsible for nuclear forces, missile units and joint command structures, the implications extend far beyond domestic power consolidation,” she told RT\u00c9 News.<\/p>\n
“They directly affect crisis management, signaling reliability and escalation control,” she added.<\/p>\n
Throughout history, Ms Tchakarova said, internal purges like this have tended to correlate “not with restraint, but with higher external risk tolerance, reduced transparency and abrupt policy shifts”.<\/p>\n
In that context, she viewed the optics of smaller countries courting Beijing amid growing tensions with the United States as problematic.<\/p>\n
“The implicit assumption that engagement with China offers a calmer, more predictable counterweight no longer holds under current conditions,” she told RT\u00c9 News.<\/p>\n
![\"Taoiseach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b29a-614.jpg\"\/)
\nTaoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin met Mr Xi in China earlier this month<\/p>\n
Despite growing concerns around China\u2019s support for Russia\u2019s war on the European continent, several Western leaders have been beating a path to China, most recently British Prime Minister Keir Starmer just this week.<\/p>\n