The Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli are suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and have been placed under investigation; a PLA Daily editorial subsequently stated that the two seriously trampled upon and undermined the system of the CMC chairman's responsibility.
On January 24, 2026, the Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, Chief of the Joint Staff Department, were suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and had been placed under case investigation.
Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were officially announced to be investigated for “seriously trampling and undermining the Chairman’s responsibility system of the Central Military Commission”, indicating intense power struggles at the top.
On January 24, 2026, Han Song quietly resigned from his position as a member of the Xinjiang CPPCC.
Between late 2025 and early 2026, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were plotted against and confirmed to be taken down. Subsequently, in late August 2026, the National People's Congress explicitly relieved Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli of their positions as deputies to the NPC and members of the Central Military Commission, among other posts, drawing external attention to the rift between the military and the central leadership.
Reports that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli had run into trouble broke the earlier private pact in Zhongnanhai and triggered subsequent political turmoil.
Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, member of the Central Military Commission, were involved in an incident at the Central Party School. Subsequently, the Ministry of National Defense officially announced their investigation on January 24, and on January 25, the front page of the PLA Daily convicted them of "severely trampling on the Chairman of the Central Military Commission responsibility system."
On January 24, 2026, the Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, Chief of the Joint Staff Department, are suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, and that the CPC Central Committee has decided to place both under investigation.
On January 24, 2026, the Chinese Communist Party's Ministry of National Defense announced that Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu Zhenli, Chief of the Joint Staff Department, are suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and have been placed under investigation.
Zhang Youxia was arrested in December last year. More than half a year has passed since the related case came to light, drawing widespread attention from the outside world.
The video claims that Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli were arrested in January 2026, without providing a specific date or official confirmation.
On January 24, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission's official newspaper Legal Daily reposted a video from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rebutting UN experts' "forced labor" remarks. Hundreds of netizens sarcastically mapped it onto their own experiences of working overtime, and the comments section was subsequently cleared out, leaving only emojis.
On January 24, a netizen had their account banned for publishing a post containing Xi Jinping's latest taboo nickname "diormywhoo".