State Media Signaled Purges Prior to Zhang Youxia’s Demise
Executive Summary:
- Party-state media has framed anti-corruption work as a top priority since the October 2025 fourth plenum. This can be read as signaling that Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chair He Weidong’s downfall was in fact the end of a new beginning in Xi Jinping’s struggle to control the military.
- An unusually long 26-part series in PLA Daily on anti-corruption published across the last six weeks of 2025 warned of leading officials abusing their power—possibly a veiled reference to CMC Vice Chair Zhang Youxia.
- A clearer parallel to Zhang appeared in a lengthy PLA Daily article published exactly a week before the investigation into Zhang was announced. The article contained an “unimaginable” story about a Korean War hero who decades later was found guilty of corruption.
- Parsing evidence from Party-state media sources is an inexact science, and conclusions are often only verifiable after the fact. But a review of PLA Daily coverage in the run up to the investigation into Zhang suggests that his downfall may have been more readily anticipated.
Several questions have dogged analysts in the days following the downfall of the military’s top operational commander. Should we have seen it coming? What precipitated Zhang Youxia’s (张又侠) demise? How will General Secretary Xi Jinping proceed? As with all such questions, analysts must begin by discovering what is knowable before making assessments based on the available information.
In Xi Jinping’s new era, available information is much harder to come by than in the preceding decades. But sufficient data exist to allow the analyst to put forward arguments underpinned by the evidentiary record. Party-state media remain critical sources. Even though we now sit at a remove of several decades from the heyday of Pekingology, experts remain convinced that these sources are “still as important as they ever were” (SAIS China Research Center, 2024). And yet this kind of analysis has largely been absent following the announcement of the investigation into Zhang Youxia and his colleague on the Central Military Commission (CMC), Liu Zhenli (刘振立). Only a small number of analyses published following the announcement appear to be the result of following what official sources have been saying day in, day out, and using that evidence to support an argument. [1] Interrogating the PLA Daily archive from the months leading up to the purge suggests that those who were paying daily attention to the official messaging were likely less surprised by the recent turn of events.
Trailed in the Paper
Reading back through the principal newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the PLA Daily, a compelling case can be made that purges of the military leadership would continue following the defenestration of former CMC vice chairman He Weidong (何卫东) in October 2025. From a post-purge perspective, it is easy to see confirmatory evidence in every article on corruption, each reference to upholding the “CMC chairman responsibility system,” and all exhortations to achieve the PLA’s centenary goal of building a world-class military by 2027. I have tried to be mindful of such biases in what follows below.
The report from the fourth plenum in October 2025, at which the Party’s Central Committee adopted its “Recommendations” (建议) for the 15th Five-Year Plan, contained a single paragraph on the military. The first item it addressed was “implementing the [centenary goal] on schedule” (如期实现建军一百年奋斗目标) (CCP Member’s Net, October 23, 2025). The second sentence focused largely on political loyalty. It cited Xi Jinping Thought on strengthening the military, the Party’s absolute leadership over the military, and thoroughly implementing the CMC chairman responsibility system. In a list of four aspects of the military that the PLA should promote, political construction in the military is listed first.
In some ways, the emphasis on political loyalty above all else at the plenum makes sense. This was the moment at which He Weidong’s removal was confirmed. It was also the session at which Zhang Shengmin (张升民), the CMC’s disciplinary head, was elevated to the rank of CMC vice chair. At the same time, however, the “Recommendations” released at the plenum are scoped to a five-year period, not to the Machiavellian machinations of the moment. As subsequent messaging suggests, the likelier inference was that He Weidong’s downfall was not the beginning of the end, but the end of a new beginning.
Within a month of the plenum, the PLA Daily published the first article in a series of commentaries (系列谈) on “continuously deepening political re-education and advancing rectification and anti-corruption” (持续深化政治整训、纵深推进正风反腐). Appearing on the paper’s second page (but highlighted on the front), the article begins by declaring that “the PLA cannot tolerate corruption, and a mighty and civilized force must not be tarnished” (人民军队不容腐败，威武文明之师不容玷污). It goes on to state that, “at present, our army’s anti-corruption struggle has entered a new critical juncture, and the situation is severe and complex” (当前，我军反腐败斗争进入一个新的关口，形势严峻复杂) (PLA Daily, November 11). At the time, readers might have assumed that this was referring to fallout from the He Weidong case. But in retrospect, announcing a “new and critical juncture” likely signaled that more was still to come.
This series extended to at least 26 articles, spanning more than six weeks. The sheer number of column inches allocated to this topic signals its ongoing centrality following the fourth plenum, and perhaps even its unusual significance in recent history: a cursory search has failed to find other “series” (系列谈) with anywhere near as many instalments. [2] The penultimate article in the series alerted readers to the danger of being “rounded up and hunted” (围猎), warning that those doing the hunting “often … hide within friendships and familial bonds, making them highly covert” (往往 … 隐藏在友情和亲情之中，具有较强的隐蔽性) (PLA Daily, December 26). This may be a veiled reference to senior leaders like Zhang Youxia, though this is far from obvious. The article that appears most likely to point toward Zhang is the 26th, and final, instalment. It notes that “leading officials wield a certain degree of power” (领导干部手中都掌握着一定的权力), before going on to observe that “there remain individual leading Party members and officials who abuse public power for private gain” (然而现实中，仍有个别党员领导干部公权私用), a phrase that has appeared elsewhere in the series. The article suggests that “this serves as a warning to us that power, regardless of how much one has … can be abused” (这警示我们，权力不论大小 … 可能被滥用) (PLA Daily, December 27).
Other articles outside the series have rehearsed similar themes. The leading commentary on the front page of the December 26 issue of PLA Daily describes the fight against corruption as “an ongoing process with no end in sight” (只有进行时，没有完成时). Reporting the outcomes of a Christmas Day politburo meeting to hear a report from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, it framed recent purges as representing a continuation of the Party’s efforts to rectify conduct and fight corruption since 2012. It repeats the tifa (提法) that the military’s anti-corruption struggle has entered a new phase, and calls for the PLA to “continue to advance the rectification of ideology, personnel appointments, organizational structures, conduct, and discipline” (持续深化政治整训，贯通抓好整顿思想、整顿用人、整顿组织、整顿作风、整顿纪律) (PLA Daily, December 26).
A second commentary, published on January 12, appears even more relevant. Subtitled “written as the People’s Army continues to deepen political rectification and consolidation in the new era and on the new journey” (写在新时代新征程人民军队持续深化政治整训之际), embedded in the article is the story of Zhao Zhili (赵志立). A decorated soldier, Zhao had seen action in the Korean War before being found guilty of corruption decades later. “Nobody could have imagined” (谁也没有想到) that this might happen to such a valiant and supposedly loyal soldier, the author writes (PLA Daily, January 12). Exactly one week after the article was published, the Ministry of National Defense announced that the Party Center suspected him of “serious violations of discipline and law” (严重违纪违法) and had placed him under investigation (MND, January 24). Who could have imagined such a thing? Who indeed.
Conclusion
The analyst must never take the writ of the People’s Daily or PLA Daily as fact, but they can treat it as a form of gospel: these outlets represent the Party’s truth for the Party’s audience. This audience numbers in the millions, even the tens of millions. As such, the messaging needs to be sufficiently clear to be sufficiently understood. This messaging has a clear target audience (or in some cases multiple target audiences), but it is, in one sense, a more reliable guide to what the Party thinks than other sources. The Party operates an increasingly sophisticated information warfare apparatus, in which it uses various channels, both online and offline, for misdirection and obfuscation. When comes to transmitting its intentions to its own membership, it has much less reason to communicate with such opacity.
Most preliminary conclusions that analysts draw from these sources are verifiable, but only after the fact. As with any research program, the key factor that differentiates a good hypothesis from an inferior one is the amount of data one marshals to inform it. It remains the case that there is little substitute to following what the Party says on a daily basis, tracking conversations and debates as they unfold, and becoming attuned to changes in wording. For any future analyses of Zhang Youxia, the CMC, or any other seemingly inscrutable topic, one guiding question in the production of analysis, therefore, should be: have we deeply studied the evidence, and thoroughly implemented our findings?
Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation.
Notes
[1] Here I am thinking principally of the excellent work of K. Tristan Tang (China Brief, January 26, February 3).
[2] China Brief covered the first two instalments in this series back in early November (China Brief, November 14). If any readers have evidence of PLA Daily series of a similar—or even superior—length, this author would be interested to know more! Please get in touch: cbeditor@jamestown.org.
