Drew Thompson
Jan 26, 2026

I

I was genuinely surprised and frankly shocked by the announcement on Saturday that Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia is under investigation and presumably detained. I should not have been surprised. Hundreds of senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers have been investigated, detained and imprisoned since Xi came to power in 2012.

Corruption is endemic in the PLA giving Xi Jinping a perpetual and universal anti-corruption tool to purge politically suspect officers from the ranks. I have been hearing rumors since 2023 that he was being investigated, but I always assumed and even hoped that he would escape Xi’s endless purges. For five years Zhang was in charge of the PLA’s procurement enterprise which involves large budgets and presumably large kickbacks. PLA officers reportedly pay superiors for promotions with variable pricing depending on the rank and potential profitability of the position. Zhang’s predecessor and successor were both punished for corruption.

I assessed that Zhang Youxia’s combat experience, his self-confidence, intellect and life-long commitment to the defense of China and the Communist Party would protect him. I thought that his life-long relationship with Xi Jinping would be his insurance. Even their fathers were friends. I thought that some financial impropriety would be overlooked because of his abilities and relationship with Xi.

Mostly, I was rooting for him to survive the purges because I liked him.

General Zhang Youxia spent a week in the United States in May 2012 as part of a delegation led by Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie, hosted by then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Zhang was Shenyang Military Region Commander at the time, one of over ten general officers on the delegation with Defense Minister Liang. In 2012, I was the Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, responsible for planning and organizing the delegation’s visit to the United States. I accompanied them on the trip including meetings in the Pentagon and tours of military bases on the East and West coasts.

I got to know Zhang Youxia on that trip, and I liked him.

Some legends in this picture – Dave Stilwell, then Defense Attaché in Beijing (who went on to become Assistant Secretary of State after retiring from the Air Force); Peter Lavoy, Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; Jim Miller, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; Secretary Panetta and the late Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. I can not remember the name of the US-side’s translator in that meeting. General Zhang Youxia is sitting to Defense Minister Liang’s right out of the camera’s view. At General Liang’s left is one of the PLA’s most capable staff officers and English translators, then-Major Xie Kangmin. I was in the back or out in the hall. The sharp eyed observer will note that DepSec Carter brought a folder with a classification coversheet into the meeting. Don’t ask me why.

Zhang Youxia was different than most other PLA generals I encountered. The PLA is a political organization – it is the armed wing of the Communist Party – it is not a national army sworn to protect the constitution or the country. Officers’ careers are primarily determined by their political reliability and interpersonal relationships. Loyalty and ideology is more important than warfighting ability. Critical thinking and independent thought can be a liability, rather than an asset in the PLA. This is the PLA’s culture. Class struggle was the defining feature of Mao’s society and army so officers came from worker-peasant families, had little education and many were illiterate. That legacy has vestiges today. I encountered many senior PLA officers who were not well educated. They could be intelligent, but you could tell by their strong accents, vocabulary and discussions they were neither intellectual nor worldly. Some senior officers were very good at spouting the Party line by memory at length but could say little else.

Zhang Youxia stood out. Had seen combat and been humbled by it. He is educated, intellectual, intuitive. He would see something on display and understood its importance and value, and probably also understood why we were showing it to him.

I worked closely for years with my counterparts, the younger PLA staff officers responsible for US-engagement. We bonded over many, many meetings at all hours in Washington and Beijing, including travelling delegations like the one Zhang Youxia joined. There was healthy mutual respect between the China Desk in the Pentagon and the America’s Desk in the PLA HQ. My counterparts staffing the PLA delegations of course had their own relationships with their generals. It was always fascinating to me how they responded to and supported their own senior leaders. Some PLA generals needed hand-holding, spoon-feeding, lots of ego stroking, and those normally had little substance to offer in discussions. Their staff officers served them, but I could see they had less respect for those generals. I always guessed those officers paid for their positions and had proven the Peter Principle.

Zhang Youxia was different. He had an aura of competence around him. The other PLA generals and staff officers could see it, and they respected him for it. They stood up faster and straighter when he entered a room. They gave him their best. It wasn’t just that he was one of the few remaining officers to have fought (and lost) the brief war with Vietnam in 1979, or that he went to kindergarten with Xi Jinping, but he had that going for him too.

Zhang Youxia talked with me that week more than any other PLA general on a delegation. He was inquisitive, thoughtful, respectful. He had high empathy. He wasn’t afraid to talk to foreigners unlike some other senior officers who were often afraid or unable to engage. (Maybe my Chinese was too terrible for them to listen to). He treated his own staff officers with respect, and I suppose he was treating me the same way. I was impressed that he would engage me in conversation because it was unusual.

When we visited Fort Benning, Zhang became animated. We offered the opportunity for him to see static displays of some weapon systems, and the opportunity to fire a few. Many PLA officers are essentially focused on administrative and political roles, not warfighting. Many have never fired a gun and would hesitate before engaging non-commissioned officers on a firing range. Not Zhang. He jumped at the chance to fire a machine gun. He focused on all the static displays and asked the briefers good questions about US technology and doctrine (don’t worry, everything was unclassified!) Many generals don’t know what questions to ask a briefer because their staff didn’t give them questions in advance. Seeing Zhang Youxia tour a military base and absorb what he was offered revealed an intellect that stood out from his peers.

General Zhang leaped at the chance to test fire an M240 machine gun. (I went straight for the .50 cal!)

He thoroughly enjoyed the “weapons orientation” experience. These are my personal photos taken at Fort Benning, GA. I gave copies to him.

My hope – for the sake of stable US-China military-to-military relations and cross-Strait stability - was that Zhang Youxia would stay at the top of the CMC and remain Xi Jinping’s closest military advisor. I think he was the one active duty PLA officer who could give Xi the best, most objective advice about PLA military capabilities including the PLA’s shortcomings, and crucially the human cost of military conflict. I think he could assess US and Taiwan military capabilities objectively and explain to Xi Jinping what the military risks and costs of an operation to take Taiwan would be. A sycophant with no combat experience has to tell Xi what Xi wants to hear. Zhang’s intellect, experience and his relationship with Xi made honesty and objectivity possible, and that makes him an exception among PLA generals.

Zhang Youxia is on the edge of the photo, eyeballing the system on display, while General Liang looks at the briefer. I was exhausted after a week of travel and meetings which explains my bloodshot eyes and the bags under them. I was also a bit angry in this photo because a PLA attaché travelling with us had just done something naughty but inconsequential, so I was using my deterrence face so he wouldn’t do it again. You have to set boundaries.

For a US deterrence strategy to be effective we need Xi Jinping to be surrounded by competent generals who will give him objective advice. The sole remaining general on the CMC is Zhang Shengmin, a career political commissar. Leaving aside the governance and operational risks of Xi being advised by and trying to command a million-man army through a one-man committee, I worry about the consequences of someone other than Zhang Youxia providing Xi Jinping with military advice.

Without Zhang Youxia on the CMC, the risk of miscalculation goes up.

Having worked on US-China relations in some way most of my adult life, that makes the potential consequences of an investigation and likely detention of Zhang Youxia a personal disappointment.

There is another layer to my personal feelings about Zhang Youxia’s demise.

In October 2023, South China Morning Post reporter Minnie Chan was visiting Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum when she disappeared. She was researching rumors that Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin were being investigated at the time.

It is no secret that she and I were in regular contact. I was quoted in many of her articles about the PLA, providing my analytical assessment of whatever issue or fact she was researching and reporting on. She was a friend too. She knew the PLA as well as any outsider and we could compare notes all day. I usually learned more from her than she from me. We would sometimes speak on the phone, and sometimes text. Soon after she disappeared, all but one of her texts to me were deleted. I don’t know if she deleted them or if it was whoever is holding her and took control of her phone.

A month before her disappearance we were discussing whether or not Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin were being investigated. She was certain. In September 2023 when I asked, “Do you think Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin are in trouble and being investigated?” She responded succinctly, “Yes”.

That one word text is the only one in the string that was not deleted.

I don’t know why Minnie was detained and is still in custody. She had many Mainland sources and contacts and worked on many stories, so I have no idea if her investigation into investigations of Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin in 2023 was the cause of her being disappeared.

My hope is now that the investigation of Zhang Youxia is public, Minnie can be released and can go back to producing excellent articles that provided accurate, authentic perspectives of China’s military and defense strategy so we can better understand China and reduce the risk of misperception.

I fear she has been forgotten.

I want my friends back.

Zhang Youxia inspecting an MRAP at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, May 2012. I am flanked by three PLA officers I greatly respect. L to R: Rear Admiral Li Ji, deputy director of the PLA’s foreign affairs office; Maj Gen Xu Nanfeng, Defense Attaché in Washington, and then Senior Colonel Huang Xueping, director for the Americas in the foreign affairs office.