Zhang Youxia: veteran princeling caught in China’s military purgeZhang is just the latest in a slew of top military officials suspected of ‘serious violations of discipline’AFP, BEIJINGChina’s announcement its top general was under investigation stunned defense watchers, hollowing out the country’s top military body and confirming President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) far-reaching power. Zhang Youxia (張又俠), a vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), is targeted in a probe for serious violations of the law — a common euphemism for corruption. China’s vice chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China Zhang Youxia, center, in April 2024 arrives for a group photo before the opening ceremony of the 19th Western Pacific Naval Symposium in Qingdao, China’s Shandong province. In 2017, Zhang was promoted to one of the CMC’s vice chairman positions, also joining the Communist Party’s elite body, the Politburo. An earlier editorial, published a day after Beijing announced the probes, said their actions “seriously undermined and violated the system of responsibility of the CMC chairman,” Xi.

Source: Taipei Times February 04, 2026 17:14 UTC