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Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, two of the most powerful military leaders in China, are now officially in custody. Rumors have buzzed in the Chinese diaspora for days, but the speed still comes as a shock; usually there’s a far longer gap between the detention of leaders and the official announcement of their fate.

The crux of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political language is not what it says, but when it says it—and to whom. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) mouthpieces have accused Zhang and Liu of having “seriously trampled on and undermined the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the [Central Military Commission] CMC chairman” and threatening “the Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces.” These charges have little directly to do with corruption in the conventional sense, nor are they just about the military. They are political accusations, virtually identical to those leveled at former CMC Vice Chair He Weidong, who was purged last year.

Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, two of the most powerful military leaders in China, are now officially in custody. Rumors have buzzed in the Chinese diaspora for days, but the speed still comes as a shock; usually there’s a far longer gap between the detention of leaders and the official announcement of their fate.

The crux of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political language is not what it says, but when it says it—and to whom. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) mouthpieces have accused Zhang and Liu of having “seriously trampled on and undermined the system of ultimate responsibility resting with the [Central Military Commission] CMC chairman” and threatening “the Party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces.” These charges have little directly to do with corruption in the conventional sense, nor are they just about the military. They are political accusations, virtually identical to those leveled at former CMC Vice Chair He Weidong, who was purged last year.

These arrests are political, first and foremost; anti-corruption is just a cloak in which the politics are wrapped. Anti-corruption has become an easy excuse in Chinese politics, but once every charge against officials is forced into this frame, it inevitably collides with a community of power that itself is saturated with corruption.

This isn’t to deny that those under investigation are often genuinely corrupt; it’s to say that........

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