By Li Jingyao
Alleged collapse at the top of China’s military command
The reported downfall of Zhang Youxia, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (the Chinese Communist Party body that commands the armed forces), and Liu Zhenli, the chief of the Joint Staff Department (the PLA’s operational command authority), has sent shockwaves through overseas Chinese political circles. Inside China, however, official information remains tightly sealed. In this vacuum, leaks and insider testimony—impossible to independently verify—have proliferated online.
The most severe allegations depict Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and commander-in-chief, as having crossed a decisive threshold: ordering a purge so ruthless that it leaves “no one alive.” According to these accounts, not only were Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli neutralized, but their personal guards, aides, and even household staff were executed. At the same time, purported lists detailing a wholesale replacement of senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership began circulating on social media.
‘Xi has opened the gates to killing’
Sheng Xue, an overseas Chinese democracy activist and longtime dissident organizer, disclosed that she recently received information from a trusted contact inside mainland China, identified only as “Mr. X.”
“Xi Jinping has reached a frenzied state,” the source said. “This purge has caused enormous damage. Zhang Youxia’s resistance has already collapsed.”
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According to the account, Xi now fully controls the situation precisely because he has “opened the gates to killing.” The guards and domestic staff of both Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, the source alleged, were executed as part of a deliberate strategy to eradicate entire networks rather than individual figures.
The scale described is staggering. In Beijing alone, roughly 20,000 people are said to have been detained. More than 200 arrests reportedly occurred in the Southern Theater Command (one of the PLA’s five regional combat commands), with over 70 within the General Staff system. A new roster of replacements has allegedly been finalized—dominated not by well-known generals but by obscure, little-known figures.
“Xi strikes without restraint,” the source said. “He leaves no survivors. Around fifty people tied to Zhang Youxia—family members, guards, and household staff—were all killed.”
Manpower, money, and coercion
According to the same disclosures, Xi Jinping’s effective coercive power extends far beyond the PLA’s approximately 1.2 million active-duty troops across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force. It also encompasses more than 2 million People’s Armed Police (a paramilitary internal-security force), 8 million militia members, and an estimated 11 million veterans—yielding a potential mobilizable force approaching 20 million.
Amid the purge, the military has reportedly been informed that salaries will rise again next month, a move interpreted within dissident circles as both an incentive and a loyalty test during a period of extreme internal tension.
Accounts of extreme brutality
Several leaked accounts describe violence intended to terrorize rather than merely punish. In one case, operatives allegedly attempted to detain personnel from the Eastern Theater Command (responsible for Taiwan contingencies). When one officer refused to sign a document, enforcers reportedly smashed his hand into pulp with a rifle butt in front of assembled colleagues.
Another account describes a deputy corps-level officer in the Southern Theater Command who lost control of his bladder when arrested, soaking his trousers and shoes in fear.
Such stories, repeated across dissident networks, are cited as evidence that the purge is designed not only to eliminate opponents but to instill paralyzing fear throughout the officer corps.
Rebuilding a modern ‘Dongchang’ and ‘Xichang’
According to these disclosures, Xi Jinping has deliberately modeled his internal security apparatus on the Ming dynasty’s notorious Dongchang and Xichang—imperial secret police agencies used to surveil and eliminate political enemies.
The Central Guard Bureau (the elite unit protecting top CCP leaders) has allegedly expanded from just over 1,000 personnel to roughly 12,500. Under the banner of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, or CCDI (the Party’s top anti-corruption and internal-control organ), secret enforcement bodies resembling historical secret police are said to have been established nationwide, with estimates of total personnel ranging from 200,000 to 350,000.
These units reportedly operate through overlapping chains of command. Discipline inspection chiefs answer directly to Xi Jinping rather than to provincial party secretaries, Politburo members, or any legal authority. Enforcers are alleged to possess a de facto “kill-first” mandate—operating beyond civilian law, military regulations, and local government oversight.
“Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were extremely cautious,” one account claimed. “But intelligence still leaked, and Xi obtained advance warning.”
From Deng’s collective leadership to Mao-style rule
Sheng Xue argued that while Deng Xiaoping (China’s paramount leader after Mao) institutionalized collective leadership to prevent personal dictatorship, Xi Jinping has fully reverted to Mao Zedong’s governing model—above all through the construction of a massive, opaque coercive apparatus.
“The so-called ‘Xi faction’ people see on television are not the real core,” she said. “Xi has an underground army loyal only to him. They kill without hesitation and exist solely to do dirty work.”
The alleged mutilations and terror inflicted during arrests, she argued, are not excesses but defining features of this system.
Leaked PLA replacement lists circulate online
At the same time, social media platforms have been flooded with what are described as internal PLA replacement lists. An account using the name “Petrichor” on X claimed that a sweeping military reshuffle is already underway, naming multiple lieutenant generals across services:
- Chen Demin (Air Force), overseeing the CMC Political Work Department
- Wang Chengnan (Air Force), overseeing the CMC Discipline Inspection Commission
- Xiong Zhaoyuan (Navy), overseeing the CMC Political and Legal Affairs Commission
- Liang Ping (Army), overseeing political work in the Central Theater Command
- Cai Zhijun and Zhang Shuguang (Army), overseeing Army affairs
- Zhang Zheng and Hu Yuhai (Navy), overseeing Navy affairs
- Wang Gang and Shi Honggan (Air Force), overseeing Air Force affairs
- Lei Kai and Zhou Jingjiong (Rocket Force), overseeing Rocket Force affairs
- Peng Jingtang and Wang Hongbin (People’s Armed Police), overseeing PAP affairs
No independent verification of this list is possible.
Senior party кадров official reportedly defects
Separately, Hu Liren, a former Shanghai-based entrepreneur now residing in the United States, claimed on Jan. 28 that a former deputy minister of the CCP’s Central Organization Department (the Party body controlling elite personnel appointments) has successfully fled China.
Hu did not name the individual but argued that the escape of a senior Organization Department official signals an approaching rupture. Officials who manage to defect, he said, possess direct documentary evidence of the CCP’s crimes.
According to Hu, the alleged arrest of Zhang Youxia could unleash a cascade of internal revelations. Once such information circulates back into China, he warned, it could generate massive shockwaves and rapidly expand opposition to Xi Jinping.
“The Communist Party’s end is approaching,” Hu said.
He added that Xi, now under immense pressure, will be forced to purge even more insiders. “Xi is like an ant on a hot pan,” Hu warned. “Something major could erupt at any moment.”
Media silence and signs of internal pushback
Commentator Li Dayu, a China-focused political analyst, noted that online space is currently saturated with deliberate “information feeding”—some true, some false, some strategically mixed. Yet one fact stands out: CCP state media have abruptly stopped mentioning Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli.
From Jan. 26 to 29, major Party newspapers made no reference to Zhang. The last explicit criticism appeared in a military newspaper editorial on Jan. 25, followed by a vaguely suggestive article on Jan. 26. After that, silence.
“This alone tells you the situation is extremely serious,” Li said.
Former 1989 Tiananmen Square student leader Tang Boqiao added that some “princeling” generals—descendants of early CCP elites—have openly opposed Zhang Youxia’s arrest, arguing that it violates unwritten norms governing elite families.
Li Dayu argued that Xi’s media blackout reflects intense internal and external backlash. “The Party knows that the more it talks, the stronger the resistance becomes,” he said.
He compared the tactic to the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong after 1999, when state media abruptly fell silent after an initial propaganda blitz—not because repression ended, but because it failed. Silence created the illusion of calm while persecution continued behind prison walls.
A power struggle still unresolved
Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Initiative (an overseas Chinese intellectual organization), told foreign-language media that Xi Jinping has taken a reckless gamble by breaking long-standing political norms. Although official announcements were issued quickly, there has been no sustained follow-up, nor have the leaders of the PLA’s five theater commands publicly pledged loyalty to the “central decision.”
In Chen’s view, this signals an unresolved struggle among competing forces within the Party and the military.
“The game is still being played,” he said. “The situation has not stabilized—it is simply hidden inside a black box.”
“Who ultimately wins cannot yet be concluded,” Chen added. “If a force emerges that openly mobilizes against Xi Jinping, the collapse could accelerate rapidly. At that point, Xi’s defeat would be unavoidable.”
