The downfall of top PLA commanders suggests a high-level political struggle over control of the military as Xi Jinping moves to eliminate uncertainty.
Following the recent removal of two of China’s most senior military officials, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears to be accelerating a broader effort to reshape the top command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—one that goes beyond corruption and focuses on political loyalty and control of the armed forces.
The Epoch Times spoke to several sources in China, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, after the purge of Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and Central Military Commission member Liu Zhenli, who also heads the Joint Staff Department.
Sources close to senior CCP officials told The Epoch Times that the two men have been secretly detained and placed in complete isolation at a heavily guarded site in Beijing’s Changping district.
Multiple sources said the preliminary political assessment of the two men isn’t centered on routine disciplinary or legal violations but on allegations that they sought to “split the Central Military Commission”—a charge that directly challenges the Central Military Commission chairman and the military’s ultimate command authority.
In the context of the CCP, such an accusation places a case at the highest possible political level.
The current Central Military Commission chairman is Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Purge Signals
Within the CCP, accusations such as “splitting the Party” or “splitting the central leadership” are extremely rare and reserved for figures deemed to pose a substantive threat to the core power structure. These labels are typically not spelled out in public documents, but they carry decisive weight internally. The true political meaning often becomes clear only from how the regime subsequently handles the case.
The CCP’s post-1989 treatment of former General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was a historical precedent for this kind of opaque but consequential political judgment. Zhao was viewed as a pro-reform leader within the CCP before the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, but he was removed from power and placed under house arrest that same year until his death in 2005.
