Is China purging its top military leaders for disloyalty?
Core argument: China’s Communist Party accused former Central Military Commission first vice-chair Zhang Youxia and fellow former CMC member Liu Zhenli of forming “cliques and factions” and being “disloyal and dishonest to the party” as it moved to expel them.
China’s Communist Party accused two of Xi Jinping’s former top generals of disloyalty as it moved to expel them from its ranks on Monday, underlining the political nature of Xi’s purge of the military. Zhang Youxia, the former first vice-chair of the Central Military Commission and fellow former CMC member Liu Zhenli, “formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party,” official media said on Monday. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said in February that 36 generals and lieutenant generals had been officially purged since 2022, while a further 65 officers were missing or potentially purged.


