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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s yearslong purge of the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) culminated on Jan. 24 with the removal of his longtime top general, Zhang Youxia. Reports suggest Zhang is now being investigated for corruption and disloyalty. But his falling out with Xi may have also had to do with disagreements over military strategy. Given China’s vast military goals, any such disagreement has high stakes for the rest of the world.

What is the substance of Xi’s split with Zhang? What has Xi’s military modernization campaign achieved? And what kind of military thinker is the Chinese leader?

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s yearslong purge of the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) culminated on Jan. 24 with the removal of his longtime top general, Zhang Youxia. Reports suggest Zhang is now being investigated for corruption and disloyalty. But his falling out with Xi may have also had to do with disagreements over military strategy. Given China’s vast military goals, any such disagreement has high stakes for the rest of the world.

What is the substance of Xi’s split with Zhang? What has Xi’s military modernization campaign achieved? And what kind of military thinker is the Chinese leader?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: In understanding what happened this past week, should we be taking these allegations and rumors of Zhang’s corruption and treason at face value? It seems like that would be a bit naive given the broader kind of purges taking place. If not, what is the substance of his split with Xi exactly?

Adam Tooze: I think it’s important to understand some of the organizational sociology at work. He Weidong, who was purged [in October 2025], was accused of abandoning his original mission, losing party discipline, suffering a collapse of belief and a betrayal of loyalty, which sort of suggests he’s a complete degenerate. By contrast, Zhang is accused of seriously undermining the image and authority of the PLA. So, what you could take all of this to mean is there’s actually a kind of substantial nub to all of this. One has got to assume that any longtime Chinese senior official has skeletons in his closet. That’s not the question. The question is, does anyone choose to get them out and turn them into a charge against him? And what would motivate Xi to do that in relation to Zhang and the other senior figure [Liu Zhenli] who was purged?

Some suggest it’s really all about the effort to prepare the PLA to meet the objective of being ready for a military confrontation over Taiwan in 2027. And it then goes to fundamental issues of troop training, the direction of the build-out. Everyone agrees that the PLA is going to be expanded, but you can do that to maximize immediate impact in terms of breadth and scale, which apparently is more the Xi........

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