By Wu Jialong
Reports surrounding the alleged detention of Zhang Youxia remain clouded by uncertainty. I remain deeply skeptical that Xi Jinping has successfully taken Zhang into custody. It is equally plausible that Zhang has been shielded elsewhere by figures within the military establishment. At present, no definitive conclusion can be reached.
Zhang Youxia is a quintessential “princeling,” deeply familiar with the mechanics of CCP power struggles and in possession of real military authority. He would not be easily neutralized by Xi Jinping. Several inconsistencies have already emerged, especially in the nature and evolution of the accusations leveled against him.
When authorities first issued an announcement, the stated charge was “serious violations of discipline and law,” rather than the corruption allegations typically deployed in high-profile political purges. This phrasing lacks credibility, as it fails to specify what Zhang is actually accused of doing.
Subsequently, more pointed allegations began to circulate. The second accusation claimed that Zhang had violated the chairman responsibility system of the Central Military Commission.
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In practical terms, this amounts to an assertion that Zhang, as first vice chairman of the commission, hollowed out Xi Jinping’s authority as chairman and quietly seized control of substantive military power.
This language unmistakably signals an internal power struggle. Xi Jinping is, in effect, acknowledging that he has been unable to genuinely command the military or fully enforce the chairman responsibility system. From the perspective of foreign leaders, this admission weakens Xi’s stature and diminishes their willingness to stake political bets on his leadership.
A third accusation concerns Chinese radar systems deployed in Venezuela, which reportedly malfunctioned so badly that U.S. forces were able to enter the country and capture Nicolás Maduro alive. At the time, Zhang Youxia was serving as director of the General Armaments Department, making it possible—at least on paper—to trace responsibility back to him.
Further reports claimed that Maduro’s capture depended on insider intelligence. Someone within Venezuela’s senior leadership was said to have leaked Maduro’s location to the United States. This episode reportedly intensified Xi Jinping’s sense of vulnerability and sharpened his fear that U.S. intelligence operatives might be embedded among those closest to him.
As a result, Xi is said to change his sleeping location daily, living in a state of sustained anxiety and suspicion. His distrust extends beyond military figures such as Zhang Youxia to longtime confidants, including Cai Qi and Wang Xiaohong, on whom he has relied heavily.
Zhang Youxia’s opposition
The fourth accusation centers on Zhang Youxia’s opposition to the use of force against Taiwan. Xi Jinping is eager to achieve unification during his tenure, but personal ambition cannot substitute for strategic reality.
In reality, a military assault on Taiwan would be an operation of staggering scale, exceeding even the Normandy landings of World War II. China lacks the capability to execute a campaign of such magnitude. It has therefore been reported that Zhang repeatedly submitted assessments to Xi stating that the conditions for forced unification were not yet in place.
Treating this professional judgment as a political crime only highlights Xi Jinping’s narrow perspective and absence of genuine strategic vision.
Taken together, these four supplementary accusations appear, on the surface, to be grave and internally coherent. Yet recent Chinese media coverage of Zhang Youxia has shifted back toward familiar corruption allegations, relegating the earlier charges to the margins and stripping them of their supposed gravity.
This shift carries troubling implications for Taiwan. Senior military officers now operate under a climate of fear, regarding Xi Jinping as fundamentally untrustworthy. A new dilemma confronts them: how to signal loyalty without courting disaster.
Aligning with anti-Xi forces invites swift retaliation from Xi. Aligning with Xi and accepting promotion carries risks of its own. Officers ordered to carry out dubious tasks face elimination whether they fail or succeed. If they side with Xi today and anti-Xi forces prevail tomorrow, they will be purged. Even if Xi remains in power, he has repeatedly shown a willingness to discard his own allies. No path offers security.
As a result, military commanders have retreated into silence, carefully avoiding any clear position. Under such conditions, unavoidable questions arise: whom can Xi Jinping truly trust? And how could he realistically initiate military action against Taiwan? Who, under these circumstances, would be willing to carry it out on his behalf?
In effect, Xi has hollowed out the Central Military Commission and eroded the PLA’s command cohesion and combat effectiveness. His overriding concern has become personal survival—ensuring that he does not meet the fate of Venezuela’s Maduro, captured alive or eliminated in a precision decapitation strike. What he fears most is not Taiwan, but mutiny or a coup from within.
For these reasons, I believe that in the near term Xi Jinping lacks both the capacity and the focus to seriously confront Taiwan. He is consumed with securing his own position, while senior military leaders are preoccupied with self-preservation, mutual suspicion, and sheer survival.
Taiwan, moreover, is not an easy target. Any genuine attempt to move against it could just as easily trigger the collapse of the CCP regime itself.
Editor’s Note: This article is based on media reports, publicly circulated commentary, and analysis by the author. Claims regarding internal Chinese Communist Party dynamics, military command authority, and alleged personnel actions have not been independently verified and are presented as the author’s views and interpretations.
