China’s top general just got purged

China-watchers just spent the weekend hyperventilating into a paper bag after the rumours proved true: Zhang Youxia (plus yet another top general) is under investigation.

Why such a big deal?

• i) Seniority: second only to President Xi himself, Zhang is was China’s top general, and even a member of the Party’s top 24-member Politburo, and
• ii) Pedigree: he’s not just some square-jawed jock, but one of Xi’s fellow ‘princelings’ (their dads fought together), and a rare general with real combat experience (Zhang got wounded after Deng’s failed invasion of Vietnam).

So this stunning arrest suggests in Xi’s China, nobody is untouchable.

But… what crime did Zhang commit? There are three main theories:

1. ☢️ Nuclear espionage?

The Wall Street Journal claims Zhang leaked nuclear secrets to the US! But there are reasons to take this scoop with a quarry of salt:

First, it’s so hard to believe any Western outlet has the sources you’d need for this scoop. Beijing has such relentless surveillance (particularly on core insiders)… who’d risk it?

And second, a similar ‘nuclear secrets’ story did the rounds when Xi first nailed his foreign minister (Qin), but if that were true, Qin would now be jailed or worse, not grinning at a music festival or beavering away at a publishing house (seems Qin was having an affair).

So… there are real reasons to believe this ‘nuclear secrets’ story is less a juicy scoop, and more another Party line being fed to gullible, info-starved Westerners. Then maybe it’s…

2. 💸 Just more corruption?

Not to suggest Western militaries are immune (google Fat Leonard), but the PLA‘s politicised, bureaucratised, and off-budget DNA all set it apart — that’s famously how the CIA recruited generals: offer cash so PLA officers can bribe their way up the food chain.

So sure, the reality is someone that high, for that long, is some shade of corrupt. Throw in Zhang’s stint as head of PLA procurement (where the cash flows), plus the procurement wing’s own recent arrests (including his own former underling / defence minister), and there are reasons to semi-believe all the state outlets now crying it’s just corruption again.

But we say semi-believe because if the whole system is corrupt (Bloomberg is still banned in China after its 2012 reporting on Xi’s own ultra-wealthy family btw), the question then becomes why specifically purge Zhang, and why do so now, which brings us to…

3. 🕵️ More political intrigue?

There’s an entire cottage industry that pores over every Beijing statement for insights, and there are indeed clues that maybe Zhang’s sin wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill, get-yourself-a-Swiss-chalet, send-your-daughter-to-Harvard corruption.

The PLA’s own Daily Editorial, for example, has added spicy words like he “undermined the CMC Chairman Responsibility System“, and “endangered the Party’s ruling foundation“, which hint heavily at disloyalty — the chair of the Central Military Commission is Xi.

But in China’s black box of elite politics, we can only guess if this was, say, a) taking bribes to promote underlings, b) forming networks of influence, and/or c) something bigger.

As for that ominous ‘something bigger‘, keep in mind the only ones now fanning wild coup rumours are the usual shady sources with a long history of wish-casting.

And one can only guess whether Zhang actually committed any of the above political sins at all, or whether it’s just Xi’s own paranoia — in an autocracy where power is law, Xi would hardly be China’s first leader to purge allies before they become rivals.

So… which is it?

The truth could even be a mega-mix of both ii) (corruption) and iii) (intrigue), with i) (nuclear secrets) as the cover story or ‘ultimate charge’ to put him away for good.

But to be clear, nobody knows, and when the main theories are all actively shaped by either Party propaganda or anti-Party wish-casting, it makes sense to be cautious.

All we do know is that after an accelerating purge at the very top, Xi’s CMC is now gutted beyond Xi and his loyal enforcer Zhang Shengmin — and how long until that investigator himself becomes the investigatee?

Intrigue’s Take

Before we get into two of the big implications (Taiwan and markets), it’s worth a quick reflection on why autocracies so often use such turgid, euphemistic language to explain what tf is going on. And the answer is it’s often a way to a) maintain the leader’s plausible deniability, b) preserve the Party’s illusion of unity, and c) fend off foreign eyes.

But of course, the result is the world’s largest military and second-largest economy is run by a complete black box. If Xi has a heart attack (like his older brother), who takes charge? Nobody really knows, and that in itself is incredible.

As for this big Zhang news, what (if anything) does it mean for Taiwan? One theory is there’s no way Xi could be preparing an actual invasion with his inner circle in such disarray. But with a black box, you could always conclude the exact opposite: eg, Emperor Wu famously replaced his aristocratic generals with a younger, hungrier cohort of loyalists before attacking the Xiongnu, and in turn massively growing China’s footprint.

The other question is what (if anything) this means for China’s economy. Beijing dropped this bombshell after markets closed, presumably to cushion the shock, but you can bet executives everywhere will take notice: China’s vast economy might make you rich, or it might treat you like its own foreign minister, defence minister, and now top general.