Lingling Wei

And again, we haven't been able to verify those allegations, whether they were true or not.

What the party messaging meant is that he garnered too much influence, so much as to somehow have challenged China.

Xi Jinping's control of the military is basically, he simply has got too powerful for the top leader.

Many analysts have said Xi's growing paranoia suggests that he views any officer or senior official, you know, someone with the statue of Zhang Youxia who has, you know, independent influence,

Yeah, you know, it is quite common in China in the party's history.

Whenever they want to...

take down some high-level officials, the party would, you know, do everything, say everything to try to discredit this person and make sure that the public accepts this person's downfall as justified.

So the speed and scale of this turnover was unmatched in the post Mao Zedong era.

Xi Jinping has been carrying out significant crackdowns on Chinese military since 2023.

And more than 50 senior military officers and defense industry executives have been investigated or removed.

And Zhang Yousha is the latest.

She now is firmly in charge of the Chinese military.

By purging even his closest personal friend, Xi has signaled that there are no limits to his zeal for loyalty.

And the move suggests that any officer with too much independent power is viewed as a threat to Xi's train of command.

As you know that China considers Taiwan this self-governing democracy as part of its territory.

The ultimate goal is to reunify the mainland with Taiwan.

That's what the Chinese term is, reunification.

And Xi Jinping has claimed that reunification with Taiwan is basically ultimate prize for him.

And that's often interpreted by many analysts inside and outside China also as a deadline for the military's combat readiness to take Taiwan.

I spoke to this analyst at Jamestown Foundation, and his analysis shows that this disagreement over the ultimate prize for Xi Jinping could have amounted to a direct challenge to Xi Jinping's political agenda, because reclaiming Taiwan is a key part of Xi's political agenda.