This is the first in a three-part series covering recent political developments in the leadership of Communist China over the first six months of 2026.
Since January, China’s purge of senior officials has reached into the very top of its military command structure, in addition to claiming a former provincial party chief and several officials who were demoted rather than formally investigated.
On Jan. 24, the Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, chief of the CMC Joint Staff Department, were under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.”
The announcement marked one of the highest-level military investigations since Chinese leader Xi launched his sweeping anti-corruption campaign more than a decade ago.
Many investigations are now reaching senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers long regarded as close to Xi. The latest cases come amid a broader wave of personnel changes that has already removed more than 10 officials at ministerial rank or above since the beginning of 2026, prompting analysts to closely watch the campaign ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s next national congress, scheduled for 2027.
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Among the latest officials to fall is Sun Shaocheng, a former regional party chief whose case has drawn attention because of reported links to other officials already caught up in the purge.
Former Inner Mongolia party chief investigated
On Jan. 29, China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and National Supervisory Commission announced that Sun, deputy director of the National People’s Congress Social Development Committee, was under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law,” the Party’s standard formulation for corruption and disciplinary probes.
Sun’s career advanced rapidly after Xi came to power. He became China’s first minister of Veterans Affairs in 2018 before being appointed Communist Party secretary of Inner Mongolia in 2022. In September 2025, he was transferred to Beijing to serve in the National People’s Congress.
Chinese-language reporting has linked Sun’s investigation to Fang Yongxiang, a former subordinate who later became director of the General Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the body that commands China’s armed forces and is chaired by Xi.
Fang largely disappeared from public view in the second half of 2025, fueling speculation about his political standing. He was absent from several high-profile military events attended by Xi and was not promoted at the Communist Party’s Fourth Plenum despite vacancies that normally would have elevated several alternate Central Committee members.
As in most senior Party investigations, authorities have released no details about the evidence against Sun or the specific conduct under investigation. Some overseas Chinese commentators have, however, suggested that Sun and Fang’s political fortunes were closely connected.
Some reports have also alleged that Sun became implicated through corruption investigations involving former Inner Mongolia officials, including his predecessor Wang Lixia, a female official popualrly known as the “cross-dressing queen” prior to her purge in August 2025.
After Sun took over the region’s leadership, his son reportedly made frequent visits to Inner Mongolia and grew close to Wang’s son; the two family networks are said to have jointly meddled in project contracting, personnel appointments, and mining development across a wide range of sectors.
Sun’s downfall illustrates a broader dynamic that Chinese commentators sum up with an idiom describing corrupt cronies as “a nest of snakes and rats”: officials flatter and exploit one another when times are good, then turn and inform on each other the moment trouble arrives.
Military purge among top commanders reaches Xi loyalists
The most consequential case in this year’s purge involves Zhang Youxia, a member of the Politburo and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, a commission member and chief of its Joint Staff Department, the body responsible for coordinating operations across China’s armed forces.
On Jan. 24, 2026, China’s Ministry of National Defense abruptly announced that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law” and that, following deliberation by the Party’s Central Committee, both men would be placed under formal investigation.
Overseas Chinese-language commentators have described the investigations as the culmination of a prolonged internal struggle with two other senior officers, He Weidong, another CMC vice chairman, and Miao Hua, a commission member who directed the military’s Political Work Department.
Those accounts, which cannot be independently verified, allege that competing corruption investigations among rival groups of officers gradually widened to encompass several of Xi’s closest military associates.
Zhang, a Politburo member, has long served as Xi’s second-in-command on military affairs and was widely regarded as one of the Chinese leader’s closest allies within the PLA. He was also one of the rare Chinese military officers to have actual experience fighting a war, having commanded troops in the 1979 conflict between China and Vietnam.
Liu headed the Joint Staff Department, the military’s operational command responsible for coordinating joint operations across China’s armed forces.
Zhang Youxia, according to this account, was pushed into a counterattack. In July 2024, during the Party’s third plenum, Xi Jinping reportedly fell ill and was hospitalized. With backing from Party elders, “princeling” descendants of the revolutionary generation, and senior generals, Zhang is said to have obtained evidence of serious corruption against Miao Hua and He Weidong and then pressed Xi to act on it. Xi reportedly had little choice but to agree to remove both men.
Once Miao Hua was detained, he quickly implicated a large number of generals, lieutenant generals, and major generals who had paid bribes to him or sought his help securing promotions, including He Weidong himself. That set off a cascade of arrests among senior officers. Officers who had built their careers under Xi’s patronage, a group sometimes described as “Xi’s army,” were purged in batches, leaving the leader, according to the reporting, increasingly on edge. It was in this atmosphere that Xi moved suddenly against Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli.
On Jan. 26, 2026, Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who oversaw the Defense Department’s relationships with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia and now serves as a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, wrote publicly that he had heard as early as 2023 that Xi Jinping was quietly investigating both Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin. Thompson said the information had come from Minnie Chan, a defense correspondent for the South China Morning Post.
Publicly, Chinese authorities have disclosed few details beyond announcing the investigations.
The manner of the announcement nevertheless attracted attention among observers. Unlike most senior disciplinary cases, which are first announced by the CCDI, the decision was released by the Ministry of National Defense and attributed to the Communist Party Central Committee.
The timing also surprised some analysts. Zhang had appeared publicly only eight days earlier while attending the Fifth Plenary Session of the CCDI, whereas several other senior officials purged this year had disappeared from public view months before their investigations became public.
Other fallen officials this year, including He Weidong and Ma Xingrui, disappeared from public view roughly six months before their downfalls were confirmed — a contrast that points to the depth of hostility toward Zhang and Liu within the leadership.
Official accusations emphasize political loyalty
State media later portrayed the investigations primarily as matters of political discipline rather than financial corruption.
In a series of commentaries, the PLA Daily accused Zhang and Liu of “seriously” undermining the Central Military Commission chairman responsibility system—the command structure that places ultimate authority over the armed forces in Xi as CMC chairman. The newspaper also accused them of weakening the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, damaging political unity, harming the authority of the military leadership, and undermining combat readiness.
The emphasis on political loyalty has led many observers to conclude that the allegations extend beyond conventional corruption.
Both Zhang and Liu had previously been viewed as trusted members of Xi’s military leadership. Zhang, who fought in China’s 1979 border war with Vietnam, is widely reported to have longstanding family ties with Xi dating back to the revolutionary generation. His prominence during the Communist Party’s 19th and 20th National Congresses reinforced his reputation as one of Xi’s closest military associates.
The investigations therefore represent one of the most significant developments in Xi’s continuing campaign to reshape the People’s Liberation Army, underscoring that even some of China’s highest-ranking military leaders have not been immune from scrutiny.
Investigation remains unconcluded
More than five months after the investigations were announced, neither Zhang nor Liu has received a formal disciplinary ruling.
Unlike several other senior officials caught up in this year’s anti-corruption campaign, neither man has been stripped of his status as a delegate to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.
On June 26, the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress revoked the delegate status of 14 officials, including Politburo member Ma Xingrui and three full PLA generals—Xu Xueqiang, Li Fengbiao and Guo Puxiao. Zhang and Liu were notably absent from the list.
The delay has prompted differing interpretations among analysts. Some believe it reflects debate within the Party leadership over how to handle two of the military’s most senior officers, while others suggest that due to the scale and gravity of their misdeeds, investigators are still assembling evidence before issuing a final decision. Chinese authorities have offered no public explanation.
Unverified reports circulating in overseas Chinese-language media have alleged that Zhang accepted large-scale bribes during his military career up the 1.7 billion yuan (around US$235 million).
Senior officials quietly demoted without public charges
Not every senior official affected by this year’s personnel shake-up has been formally investigated. Several have instead been quietly removed from leadership positions without any public announcement of wrongdoing.
One example is Li Yunze, who headed the National Financial Regulatory Administration, China’s top banking and insurance regulator.
On April 29, the regulator removed Li’s biography from its official website without explanation. Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao later reported that Li had been demoted after allegedly intervening in a drunk-driving case involving his son, although Chinese authorities have not confirmed the report.
Subsequent personnel announcements indicated that Ding Xiangqun, formerly chairman of the People’s Insurance Company of China, had replaced Li as both Party secretary and director of the regulator. On June 26, the National People’s Congress also terminated Li’s status as a legislative delegate.
Another notable personnel change involved Chen Xi, the former head of the Communist Party’s powerful Organization Department, which oversees appointments throughout the Party and government.
In June, Chen was removed as president of the Central Party School, the institution responsible for training senior Party officials. While no official reason was given, overseas Chinese-language reports have suggested he was reassigned to a substantially lower-ranking position. Those reports remain unverified.
Built by the system, broken by the system
The officials removed in the first half of 2026 share some common threads. Several previously ran provincial political and legal affairs committees, the bodies that direct police and courts; others had ties to the military’s logistics apparatus. Both kinds of institutions have long served as instruments the Party uses to suppress dissidents and ordinary citizens alike.
Several of the accused, such as Zhang Youxia, had previously been viewed as close to Xi or had risen through the ranks during his tenure. Their fate reflects the cutthroat dynamics of the CCP’s internal struggles. Once they entered the Party’s ranks and rose through its official hierarchy, they were carried along by a system that rewards flattery, tolerates graft, and punishes candor, one that eroded whatever restraint they might otherwise have maintained.
In the end, the same Party that enabled their rise discarded them, using charges of corruption and disloyalty to turn them into casualties of a system built to produce exactly this outcome. The 21st Communist Party congress is still more than a year away. If the past six months are any indication, the list of ministerial-rank officials swept up before it convenes is far from finished.
By Sheng Zi (圣子), Vision Times
