March 11, 2023: Senior members of the CCP’s Central Military Commission line up to take the oath at the National People’s Congress. From right to left: Zhang Youxia, He Weidong, Li Shangfu, Liu Zhenli, Miao Hua, Zhang Shengmin. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
[People News] Fierce internal power struggles have long been taking place at the top of the Chinese Communist Party, with some figures falling while others reemerge. This drama-like cycle has continually attracted outside attention. Whenever rumors fly everywhere, onlookers view the CCP’s intense infighting with the mindset of “watching him build lofty mansions, watching him host grand banquets, and watching his tower collapse,” as they observe the brutal struggles among the CCP’s top leadership.
The CCP recently held a special seminar for provincial- and ministerial-level senior officials. Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and Central Military Commission member Liu Zhenli, among others, were absent from both the opening and closing ceremonies, drawing outside attention. At present, rumors that Zhang Youxia and 17 generals have been arrested have sparked heated discussion online.
Independent commentator Cai Shenkun posted on X on January 23, saying that news of the arrests of Zhang Youxia and 17 other senior generals was “absolutely accurate,” including General Liu Zhenli, General Xiao Tianliang, and Lieutenant General Zhong Shaojun, among others. He said that the Ministry of Public Security’s Special Service Bureau, the Central Guard Bureau, and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection jointly participated in the arrest operation, calling it “equivalent to a heavyweight military coup!”
He stated that next, a large number of military officers would still be arrested. “The news of Zhang Youxia and others being arrested was already communicated to provincial- and ministerial-level officials yesterday afternoon, and today (the 23rd) it will be conveyed to vice–provincial-level officials.”
The day before, he had posted that Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhenli, and Zhong Shaojun were arrested at the same time, and that all of Zhang Youxia’s family members were also detained, with the information already circulated among the CCP’s top internal ranks.
In addition, on January 20, an Australia-based self-media figure Jiang Wangzheng revealed on X that Zhang Youxia had been summoned for questioning, and that his son, his confidential secretary, and Liu Zhenli were all under investigation.
Because the CCP has always operated as a black box, the above information cannot yet be verified. Moreover, factional struggles within the CCP are a matter of life and death. As a result, everyone is waiting to see whether new information will emerge, all waiting to watch the spectacle of CCP top leaders tearing into one another like dogs.
Shen Mingshi, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times that in fact, since the CCP’s Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee in 2024, internal infighting at the top has been intensifying, and before this year’s “Two Sessions” in March there may be another wave of high-level power struggles. Recent rumors about Xi Jinping arresting Zhang Youxia have been vividly described; if true, they may be related to power arrangements among the CCP’s top leadership ahead of the 21st Party Congress.
Yuan Hongbing, an Australia-based liberal legal scholar, believes that Xi Jinping’s series of political theories will completely collapse, the CCP’s internal cohesion will be severely weakened, and the sense of distrust toward Xi among Party members and officials, as well as despair over the CCP’s future, will sharply deepen. In 2026, Xi Jinping will fall into a political crisis, and the crisis in the military is an extreme manifestation of the overall political crisis.
Yuan Hongbing said that people are seeing the CCP’s active-duty full generals nearly wiped out. In fact, the purge of lieutenant generals and major generals is even more widespread, and the scope of purges among colonel-level officers is even broader. Just former Central Military Commission member Miao Hua and his secretary alone reportedly implicated more than 3,000 officers who were politically disloyal to Xi Jinping. “Xi Jinping’s so-called self-revolution of turning the blade inward through massive purges has in reality destroyed the leadership and command organs of the CCP military at all levels. The year 2026 will be the weakest year for the CCP’s Party-controlled army!”
Yuan Hongbing also said that Xi believes large-scale purges can ensure the military’s loyalty to him, but newly promoted officers will still repeat the vicious cycle of disloyalty. As long as Xi Jinping does not abandon his return to Mao Zedong-style fundamentalism—an anti-historical and anti-human political path—this vicious cycle cannot change. △
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