{"id":37388,"date":"2026-01-24T12:33:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T12:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=37388"},"modified":"2026-01-24T12:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T12:33:46","slug":"china-investigates-top-military-commander-staff-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=37388","title":{"rendered":"China investigates top military commander, staff chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>China said on Saturday the senior vice chairman of its powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) and another high-ranking official were under investigation for suspected &#8220;serious violations of discipline&#8221;, a common euphemism for corruption.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement marks the latest push in a sweeping drive to root out graft at all levels of the party and state since President Xi Jinping came to power more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Following a review&#8230; it has been decided to initiate an investigation into Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli,&#8221; the defence ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The two men were &#8220;suspected of serious violations of discipline and the law&#8221;, the ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang Youxia, 75, is China&#8217;s highest-ranked general as the more senior CMC vice chairman.<\/p>\n<p>He is also a member of the powerful Politburo, the 24-member executive body of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n<p>He shares the vice chairman title with Zhang Shengmin, a general in Beijing&#8217;s secretive rocket force and who is no relation.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang Shengmin was promoted to the post in October after Beijing expelled his predecessor in another sweeping corruption purge.<\/p>\n<p>Both generals rank below Xi, who has held the CMC chairmanship since 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Liu, 61, is the chief of staff of the CMC&#8217;s joint staff department, which oversees combat planning.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours of a probe swirled this week after Zhang Youxia and Liu appeared to miss an official meeting chaired by Xi and attended by second-ranked CMC vice chairman Zhang Shengmin.<\/p>\n<p>Xi has called graft &#8220;the biggest threat&#8221; to the Communist Party and said &#8220;the fight against corruption remains grave and complex&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Proponents say the policy promotes clean governance, but others say it also serves as a tool for Xi to purge political rivals.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China said on Saturday the senior vice chairman of its powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) and another high-ranking official were under investigation for suspected &#8220;serious violations of discipline&#8221;, a common euphemism for corruption. The announcement marks the latest push in a sweeping drive to root out graft at all levels of the party and state [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}