Zhou Liang, a Party committee member and vice head of China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration, was placed under investigation on March 24, 2026, for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law,” the standard CCP euphemism for corruption and political disloyalty. The announcement came from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Party’s top internal enforcement body.
Zhou was born in October 1971 in Yongzhou, Hunan Province. He previously served as organizational department head at the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, and vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
Zhou began serving as Wang Qishan‘s personal secretary in 1997. Over the next two decades, he followed Wang through a succession of postings: the Guangdong provincial government, the State Council’s Economic Restructuring Office, the CCP’s Hainan provincial committee, the Beijing municipal government, and finally the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. No other discipline commission official worked alongside Wang longer.
Zhou Liang’s two-decade rise through Wang Qishan’s network
During Wang’s tenure as a Politburo Standing Committee member and head of the Party’s discipline commission, Zhou climbed steadily through the ranks of the anti-corruption apparatus. In 2013, he became deputy secretary-general of the discipline commission. By April 2015, he was executive deputy head of its organizational department. By September of that year, he had taken over as department head, effectively serving as Wang’s personnel chief and controlling appointments within the anti-corruption system.
In November 2017, Zhou was appointed vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. After that body merged with the insurance regulator in March 2018, Zhou continued as vice chairman of the combined entity and simultaneously took on the role of deputy chairman of the China Financial Workers’ Union. In May 2023, he transferred to the newly established National Financial Regulatory Administration as vice head, the position he held at the time of his detention.
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According to the regulatory administration’s official website, Zhou’s last known public appearance was in February 2026, when he chaired a commendation conference for the national financial regulatory system.
Chinese state media outlet Zhengzhiju previously reported that Zhou was known for keeping a notably low profile throughout his career.
Wang Qishan’s fall from anti-corruption enforcer to political target
Wang Qishan served as head of the CCP’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection during Xi Jinping’s first term as general secretary. In that role, Wang carried out an aggressive, politically selective campaign against so-called “corruption” that consolidated Xi’s grip on power by eliminating rivals and their networks. The campaign was widely understood within China and abroad as a factional weapon wielded under the guise of institutional reform.
By Xi’s second term, Wang’s public demeanor had visibly shifted from stern authority to careful deference. In September 2018, he was moved to the largely ceremonial post of state vice president. He retired from that position in 2023. The trajectory was clear: Wang had gone from indispensable enforcer to a political figure whose very connections made him a target.
Four secretaries purged: Xi Jinping dismantles Wang Qishan’s inner circle
After Wang was sidelined to the vice presidency, his former associates began falling one by one. Each case targeted a different node of Wang’s influence across China’s financial and political systems.
Dong Hong: Wang’s “political chief steward,” convicted in 2022. On Jan. 28, 2022, Dong Hong, a former deputy head of the CCP’s Central Inspection Teams and the earliest of Wang’s four known personal secretaries, was convicted of accepting 463 million yuan (approximately $63 million) in bribes and sentenced to death with reprieve, a sentence that typically converts to life imprisonment. Dong had served as Wang’s secretary for six years beginning in March 2000, when Wang took over as head of the State Council’s Economic Restructuring Office. Dong’s conviction was the first major strike against the Wang network.
Tian Huiyu: Wang’s secretary at Construction Bank, sentenced in 2024. On Feb. 5, 2024, Tian Huiyu, former president and Party secretary of China Merchants Bank, received a suspended death sentence. Tian entered China Construction Bank in 1987 and served as Wang’s personal secretary during Wang’s tenure as Construction Bank president in the mid-1990s. Tian also played a role in establishing CICC, the China International Capital Corporation, a major state-backed investment bank. His case exposed how deeply Wang’s influence had extended through China’s commercial banking sector.
Fan Yifei: Wang’s chief financial officer, sentenced in 2024. On Oct. 10, 2024, Fan Yifei, a former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (China’s central bank), was sentenced to death with reprieve. During Wang’s leadership of Construction Bank, Fan served as his chief financial officer. Fan’s fall severed Wang’s remaining reach into China’s central banking system.
Zhou Liang: Wang’s personnel gatekeeper, detained in 2026. With Zhou’s detention, all four of Wang’s known former personal secretaries have been eliminated from the political system. Zhou, as Wang’s longest-serving and most trusted aide, represented the last thread connecting Wang to an operational network within the CCP.
Xi Jinping fears Wang Qishan enough to destroy his entire network
On March 24, an X (formerly Twitter) commentator posting as “Finding心歸何處” laid out the political logic behind Xi’s methodical purge. Zhou Liang’s detention carries particular symbolic weight, the commentator argued. Zhou followed Wang since the late 1990s across postings in Guangdong, Hainan, Beijing, and the discipline commission. As organizational department head within the commission, Zhou served as Wang’s most trusted personnel gatekeeper, the person who decided who got promoted within the anti-corruption apparatus. His removal means Wang’s last political buffer has been stripped away. Xi is no longer leaving any margin of tolerance for Wang’s former network.
Online commenters drew blunt conclusions about the CCP’s internal dynamics. “Is this a CCP power redistribution? Xi has turned against the man who was once his cleanup tool?” one asked. Another wrote: “Being an official in China is now a high-risk occupation. Getting on the bus depends on your connections. Getting off the bus safely is what really matters.” The observation captured the precarious reality facing CCP officials who enriched themselves under one patron only to become disposable once that patron lost favor.
On March 24, Cai Shenkun, a U.S.-based Chinese political commentator, posted on X that Wang Qishan had treated Zhou Liang like a son and deeply valued his abilities. “No one expected he would still be arrested,” Cai wrote. “Xi Jinping is absolutely ruthless toward Wang Qishan, showing zero restraint. The main reason is that Xi is terrified of Wang.”
Cai suggested that at this trajectory, Wang could follow the path of Zhou Yongkang, the former domestic security chief who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after being purged in what was widely understood as a factional power play dressed up as an anti-corruption case. If Wang meets a similar fate, it would mark the most dramatic takedown of a former Politburo Standing Committee member since the Zhou Yongkang case itself.
According to Cai, Zhou Liang had served Wang for decades and helped recruit capable officials into positions throughout the system. Wang deliberately kept Zhou away from financial dealings to shield him from vulnerability. Even when Wang was at the height of his power, Zhou reportedly sensed the danger ahead and repeatedly requested a transfer to a provincial posting. Wang refused to let him go. When Wang stepped down from the Politburo Standing Committee, he personally raised Zhou’s future with Xi, and Xi agreed to make appropriate arrangements. Wang took Xi at his word. But as numerous Hunan-origin officials whom Zhou had recommended were arrested over the following years, Xi eventually discarded Zhou as well.
Online commenters speculated about what comes next. “The next step should be Wang Qishan himself. Everyone who could threaten Xi’s rule will be purged. Is it possible Xi’s health has seriously deteriorated, and he’s clearing out all threats before a successor takes over?” one wrote. Others characterized the crackdown as part of a broad purge targeting officials from Hunan Province, Zhou’s home region.
A lunar new year meeting triggered the final purge
In a follow-up post, Cai revealed what he said triggered Zhou’s arrest. The detention was “expected and unexpected at the same time,” Cai wrote. Expected, because Zhou was Wang’s last remaining associate and Xi wanted to eliminate every root. Unexpected, because Wang had twice personally appealed to Xi to spare Zhou, promising to withdraw entirely from politics and asking for mercy. Xi agreed to Wang’s face both times.
The breaking point came during the 2026 Lunar New Year period, when Wang sent an intermediary to meet with Zhou. This violated Xi’s explicit prohibition on any contact between Wang and his former associates. The timing was especially sensitive. After Xi’s detention of Zhang Youxia, the former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission who had been China’s second-highest-ranking military officer, Xi had already antagonized virtually the entire community of revolutionary family descendants, military family descendants, and Party elders. Xi now fears that the few remaining national-level leaders who could still pose a threat might coordinate against him. His primary concern, Cai wrote, is preventing any communication between Wang Qishan and Zeng Qinghong, the former state vice president who served as chief political strategist for the late Jiang Zemin, the CCP general secretary who built the Party’s previous dominant faction.
One commenter connected the crackdown to Xi’s broader campaign for total symbolic and political control: “Arresting the secretaries and confidants of Party elders right now is meant as a direct warning to the elders themselves. The CCP recently shut down Mao Zedong’s mausoleum in Tiananmen Square a year ahead of schedule for its once-per-decade renovation. Some analysts believe Xi thinks the mausoleum disrupts Beijing’s feng shui. Could he use this maintenance period as cover to relocate it?” The commenter concluded: “One thing is undeniable: Party and state power remain firmly in Xi’s hands. Xi moved against Zhang Youxia before the Fifth Plenum specifically to avoid becoming another Hua Guofeng,” referring to the post-Mao transitional leader who was outmaneuvered and stripped of power by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s. The observation captured the psychology of a CCP autocrat consumed by fear yet incapable of loosening his grip on power.
By Li Deyan
