Driven by Fear, Xi Flips the Table and Strikes First by Arresting Zhang Youxia

Driven by Fear, Xi Flips the Table and Strikes First by Arresting Zhang Youxia

[People News] On January 24, China’s Ministry of National Defense suddenly issued a statement announcing that Zhang Youxia, member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, member of the Central Military Commission and chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, are “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law” and have been placed under case-filing review and investigation. However, the statement did not mention any specific details of the cases involving Zhang and Liu.

Fear Drives Xi to Flip the Table

Independent commentator Cai Shenkun, who was the first overseas to disclose the arrests of Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, posted on X on January 24, stating: “Xi Jinping’s military reforms were aimed at stripping power—stripping power from the generals! And generals want to fight wars to seize power; only by fighting wars can they command the military and possibly reclaim the military power that Xi Jinping has taken away!”

Cai Shenkun pointed out that Xi Jinping’s purge of the military exceeds that of Mao Zedong, because this group of senior officers has countless ties to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and many generals were promoted during the Jiang–Hu era. If Xi Jinping wants to establish lifelong rule, he must thoroughly cut away these senior officers. Only by removing them and activating a large batch of other military personnel can he feel secure. Only then would he possibly dare to delegate power to the military to launch a forced reunification war that has no real chance of victory.

Cai Shenkun also publicly released a submitted article titled “Zhang Youxia Advocated Sending Troops to Taiwan, While Xi Jinping Was Cowardly at Home”, whose author claimed to be a “loyal subordinate of General Zhang.” Cai Shenkun believed the article showed heavy traces of AI, but that “the information disclosed was still somewhat surprising.”

The submission opens by directly stating that the arrests of Zhang and Liu “were a typical ‘extremely high-risk’ purge—not for anti-corruption purposes, but driven by fear, a preventive purge filled with intense personal emotion and political instinct.”

The submission revealed that “recently, at a very small internal meeting, Zhang Youxia unusually proposed to Xi: ‘Why not take advantage of the unresolved Russia–Ukraine and Iran situations to strike proactively, at least seize a few islands around Taiwan?’ His reasoning was simple: ‘Rather than sit and wait for death, it’s better to fight a limited war that can deter the U.S., Taiwan, and the international community, at least buying internal breathing space and time for consolidation.’ This was not war fanaticism nor the rhetoric of a unification zealot, but a ‘strategic delay plan’ proposed by a veteran general who deeply understood that the domestic economy was already extremely imbalanced, local finances were on the verge of exhaustion, and the stability-maintenance system was riddled with cracks—diverting tactics outward to buy a time window and avoid total collapse. Xi Jinping did not reject the proposal on the spot, nor did he express support. Instead, while talking about ‘strategic stability’ and ‘patience in struggle,’ he privately began arranging Zhang’s arrest.”

The submission stated that Xi Jinping’s actions “were not driven by strategy, but by fear.” “He fears losing a war; he fears that once war breaks out, U.S. forces might intervene and even carry out a decapitation strike against him personally. He fears that attacking Taiwan would spiral out of control and expand the battlefield. He fears even more that Zhang might mobilize other forces within the military and shatter the already wavering chain of loyalty. So he chose to flip the table internally, chopping off the hands that wanted to move. He would rather endure panic within the Party, chill within the military, and total anxiety throughout the grassroots system than tolerate any person who ‘does not take orders solely from his mouth’ proposing independent ideas at critical moments. And this precisely exposes the final illusion within the system: Xi is not a strategic leader; he is a coward and a lonely ruler clinging to power through fear.”

The submission concluded: “Zhang may not be a hero, but at least he had ideas; Xi may still hold power, but he has lost all trust. This is the true picture of the CCP regime in early 2026: no strategy, only instinct; no unified goal, only self-preservation reflexes. One wonders whether the next person who ‘dares to think,’ and who poses a potential threat to him, is already on the purge list.”

Xi Trusts No One

At present, Zhang Youxia’s arrest has become headline news in overseas Chinese-language media, with scholars, commentators, and netizens posting their analyses.

X user “The Future Has Arrived” wrote: “Two points are certain: first, Xi’s fear has reached the extreme—he trusts no one. Second, Xi absolutely dares not attack Taiwan. During the precious strategic window of the Russia–Ukraine war and while Biden was in office, he didn’t dare; with Trump, he’s even more terrified.”

Other netizens commented: “I feel that in recent years the CCP’s massive military purge has removed both peace-oriented and compromise-oriented officers, while preserving hardline pro-war officers. The vacant posts left by the purged officers will soon be filled by younger pro-war officers. I hope this worry does not come true.” Another wrote: “Many people say that after such extensive purges of officers, there won’t be a war in the short term. I’m not that optimistic. Stalin and Putin both purged the military while fighting wars, and the purges never stopped even at the height of war. We cannot view the military of a dictatorship the way we view that of a democratic country. The CCP’s military structure clearly resembles Stalin’s and Putin’s Russia much more.”

Writer Wang Hao posted on Facebook that Xi’s arrest of Zhang Youxia was not simple anti-corruption, but a naked political security operation—a preemptive action against potential risks of ‘non-absolute loyalty.’ In Xi Jinping’s governing logic, the military is not a professional national armed force, but the final insurance of regime survival. Therefore, any node that could form non-absolute loyalty must be dismantled early. However, the consequence may be a further increase in uncertainty regarding military professionalism and regional security. Zhang Youxia, as first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, who controlled the core of the Joint Staff system, both falling simultaneously, shows that Xi Jinping has completely lost trust in the existing military command chain. Even without clear signs of a coup, the mere presence of potential uncontrollable risk is sufficient to trigger a “strike first” governance logic, displaying a power operation model of “better to kill by mistake than to let one slip through.”

Veteran journalist Akio Yaita wrote that Zhang Youxia’s arrest “is a major political event sufficient to shake China’s political, social, and military power structures,” showing that “Xi Jinping’s paranoia has reached an extremely severe level. He not only cannot tolerate discordant voices, but has begun to regard everyone around him as a potential threat. ‘There are always unruly people who want to harm me’ is no longer sarcasm, but has become actual decision-making logic—and once such a mentality forms, it is almost impossible to reverse.” Most critically, “China’s military is being hollowed out step by step by this mode of power operation. Since 2013, under Xi Jinping’s leadership, repeated anti-corruption campaigns in the military have not resulted in institutionalized or professionalized military construction, but round after round of political purges. In the end, it seems that everyone has become a corrupt official.”

Akio Yaita concluded: “When power is held together only by fear, and loyalty replaces competence as the sole standard, this country may still appear vast on the outside, but inside it has long been extremely fragile. Such a structure may not collapse immediately, but it is almost certainly incapable of withstanding real storms.”