RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

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News | Feb. 25, 2026

Assessing Xi’s Unprecedented Purges of China’s Military: Key Developments and Potential Implications

By Bonny Lin, Brian Hart, Thomas J. Christensen, John Culver, Jonathan A. Czin, Suyash Desai, M. Taylor Fravel, Allie Matthias, and Joel Wuthnow CSIS

On January 24, 2026, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced that the military’s top general, Zhang Youxia, and the chief of the Joint Staff Department, Liu Zhenli, had been placed under investigation for serious disciplinary and legal violations. The downfall of these two senior generals marks the most dramatic move yet in Xi Jinping’s years-long campaign to gut the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The removal of Zhang, Liu, and several other generals from the Central Military Commission (CMC) has left only one general, Zhang Shengmin, serving on China’s top military decisionmaking body alongside Xi. However, the purges within the CMC are only the tip of the iceberg. Since 2022, over 100 senior PLA officers from across virtually all areas of the armed forces have been swept aside or gone missing, amounting to an unprecedented purge of China’s military.

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