More Information Links Zhang Youxia’s Purge to 2027 Preparations

More Information Links Zhang Youxia’s Purge to 2027 Preparations

Executive Summary:

• Recent PLA Daily articles include additional details on Zhang Youxia’s purge and reveal differences between Zhang Youxia and Xi Jinping over the pace of force building, especially in relation to the 2027 PLA centenary goal, a key political priority of Xi.
• The PLA Daily explicitly links the push to achieve the centenary goal to Zhang Youxia’s purge and reiterates that Zhang and Liu had negative effects on the PLA’s combat capability development.
• The PLA Daily stresses that the entire force must recognize strategic design, pathways, and target tasks as an established consensus that no one may question, and it underscores that all military planning must submit to political leadership.
• Past Chinese official information shows that joint operations capability is emphasized in the 2027 goal, but joint training under Zhang Youxia’s leadership lagged behind expectations and carried political implications of defying Xi Jinping’s orders.

On January 24, authorities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced investigations into Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (张又侠) and Joint Staff Department chief Liu Zhenli (刘振立). Additional articles published on January 31 and February 2 by the PLA Daily, the flagship newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have revealed substantial new information (PLA Daily, January 31, February 2).

These articles reinforce the thesis that Zhang’s purge was due to differences with CMC Chairman Xi Jinping over military development, which is also a significant political threat to Xi. Two pieces of evidence indicate that this thesis—a plausible reading of the initial January 25 PLA Daily editorial that followed the announcement of the investigation into Zhang—now appears more likely: direct references to the 2027 centenary goal, and further divergences from coverage of the purge of former CMC vice chairman He Weidong (何卫东) (China Brief, January 26). [1]

Falling Behind Centenary Goal Schedule

Developing joint combat capabilities is a core part of the PLA’s centenary goal, which first appeared in the communiqué of the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in 2020 (Xinhua, October 29, 2020; November 26, 2020). Authoritative interpretations of the goal specifically addressed combat capability development. An article penned by former CMC vice chairman Xu Qiliang (许其亮) in the People’s Daily in November 2022 listed five major objectives required to achieve the centenary goal (People’s Daily, November 7, 2022). Two of these—building a high-level strategic deterrence and joint operations system and promoting the transformation and upgrading of military training—clearly emphasized joint operations. More recently, an article Xi Jinping personally authored in Qiushi in July 2024 on achieving the PLA centenary goal similarly emphasized joint operations and training in its discussion of warfighting and victory capability (Qiushi, July 31, 2024).

A credible joint operations capability would be a prerequisite for an attack on Taiwan. Western observers, including former CIA Director William Burns and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), have stated that the 2027 goal includes an order from Xi for the PLA to develop the capability to conduct such an attack (CBS, February 3, 2023; DoD, December 23, 2025). It is therefore reasonable to infer that Xi views the military training for which Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were responsible as exceptionally important. The two generals oversaw critical tasks directly tied to the PLA’s principal strategic goal. However, since the centenary goal was declared more than five years ago, joint operations training has progressed more slowly than a 2027 timeline would require (China Brief, January 26).

Linking Zhang’s Purge and 2027 Force-Building Planning

The January 31 and February 2 PLA Daily articles link the purges of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli directly to advancing the PLA centenary goal and removing obstacles to building combat capability. While the initial PLA Daily article, published on January 25, did not mention 2027, the January 31 article did make the link in the same sentence. It claimed that the decision to open an investigation into Zhang “constitutes a resolute and powerful push to win the critical battle to achieve the PLA centenary goal” (是打好实现建军一百年奋斗目标攻坚战的强力推动) (PLA Daily, January 31). Earlier PLA Daily articles criticizing He Weidong also mentioned the 2027 goal, but did not directly link it to his purge, or the purges of other officials.

The February 2 article, meanwhile, stated that Zhang and others had had a negative impact on the PLA’s combat capability and had acted as obstacles to military development: “By resolutely investigating corrupt elements such as Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli,” it said, “roadblocks and stumbling stones that hinder the development of the military cause and squeeze out the inflated elements in combat capability building have been removed” (坚决查处张又侠、刘振立等腐败分子，清除的是影响事业发展的拦路虎、绊脚石，挤去的是战斗力建设的水分)” (PLA Daily, February 2). This constitutes another divergence from criticism of He Weidong, which did not accuse him of hindering progress in building combat capability.

Both articles both used language implying the existence of issues in the planning and implementation of force building, areas in which Zhang Youxia had been intimately involved. For instance, the January 31 commentary acknowledged that the purge of Zhang and others could bring short-term difficulties, but argued that everyone in the military must obey the Party leadership and treat the Party’s strategic design and implementation planning as a shared consensus (PLA Daily, January 31). This again contrasts with PLA Daily articles related to the purge of He Weidong, which did not use this or similar language, and suggests that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli faced real problems in this area and that these problems reflected disagreements with Xi Jinping.

The February 2 article clearly emphasizes the primacy of political control over the military, indicating that this lies at the heart of the latest purges. It states that “political awareness” (政治建军) must run through “the entire process of planning formulation and implementation” (规划编制和实施全过程), a phrase that also appeared in articles following the opening of an investigation into He Weidong. But unlike the coverage of He, in which this phrase was followed by an 88 character series of general policy slogans, in Zhang’s case, it was immediately followed by a clear and concise 22-character formulation: “accelerate force transformation and construction, and advance high quality national defense and military modernization” (加快部队转型建设，高质量推进国防和军队现代化). This contrast, coupled with the stronger accusation that Zhang damaged both the political ecology of the PLA and “political awareness” (He Weidong was only accused of damaging political ecology), suggests that Zhang did violate the requirements of political control over the military and caused problems related to the full process of planning formulation and implementation (PLA Daily, October 24, 2025; February 2; China Brief, January 26).

Conclusion

Parsing PLA Daily coverage of the fall of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli reveals a clear contrast with similar coverage of the fall of He Weidong in October 2025. The differences in language used suggest that Zhang (and Liu) disagreed with Xi Jinping over force-building plans, specifically over achieving the 2027 PLA centenary goal, and that these differences had negative effects on PLA combat capability development.

This situation presents a military problem in form, but it constitutes a serious political problem in substance. Once it became clear that Zhang was at odds with Xi, and that Xi’s authority was being undermined, only one option was available. Purging Zhang, an alleged obstacle to military development, was ultimately a political decision. Even if newly appointed senior commanders declare the PLA’s centenary goals met in 2027, its joint operational capability is unlikely to have been substantively achieved—much as Zhang Youxia, a competent and experienced commander, appears to have recognized (Substack/Drew Thompson, January 26).

Notes

[1] The PLA’s centenary goal refers to the “military building centenary struggle goal” (建军百年奋斗目标).