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Posted on 01/30/2026 9:28:22 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Internal orders issued by China’s top military authority have met widespread resistance at the grassroots level following the purge of two of the country’s most senior generals, according to multiple sources close to the People’s Liberation Army who spoke to The Epoch Times.
After Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and chief of the Joint Staff Department Liu Zhenli were placed under investigation on Jan. 24, at least two directives issued by the CMC General Office to theater commands and group armies were ignored or only passively acknowledged. Sources said the grassroots troops within the military are expressing dissatisfaction, with the command-and-control system of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showing signs of dysfunction.
Ruan, a China-based source familiar with the military who gave only his surname out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the CMC’s top leadership has now been reduced to just two figures: Chinese leader Xi Jinping and CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Shengmin.
Within the military, Ruan said, the removal of Zhang Youxia and Liu—both career officers rooted in the military’s command system—has been widely interpreted as a concentrated political purge, triggering resentment across multiple theater commands.
“This has severely undermined trust in top-level decision-making,” Ruan said, noting that many officers now view the process as driven by loyalty enforcement rather than institutional discipline.
Ruan said that on the same day the investigations were announced on Jan. 24, the CMC General Office issued at least two documents instructing military units to “maintain consistency with the Party Central Committee and the CMC” and to organize political study sessions for learning communist ideology and pledging loyalty to the regime.
However, in several regions those instructions were met with silence. Some units declined to issue public statements or hold internal meetings. A follow-up directive issued the next day—intended to suppress growing backlash—produced no meaningful change, and compliance remained minimal.
A review of official military and defense websites by The Epoch Times in the days following the purge showed no public declarations of loyalty from theater commands or major service branches—an absence that sources said is highly unusual in the PLA’s political culture.
“The command channel for top-level military orders has effectively stalled,” said a source close to the military, who spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
“From commanders to rank-and-file soldiers, dissatisfaction with the Central Military Commission is spreading.
“Orders are issued, but no one takes them seriously.”
Similar behavior has been reported in the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command. A family member of an active-duty officer confirmed to The Epoch Times that some soldiers privately call Xi names that would have been unthinkable in earlier years.
“In the military context, this means the authority of the supreme commander is no longer recognized,” said the family member, who spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
“Once orders from the top are no longer seen as absolute, any talk of war mobilization loses its foundation—no one would risk their life for you.”
Hu, a graduate of a Chinese military academy who gave only his surname, told The Epoch Times that the situation is historically rare.
“What we’re seeing now—bottom-up resistance—is unprecedented,” he said.
He noted that CMC directives have traditionally been followed by immediate, cascading statements of loyalty across all commands. The current “collective silence,” he said, is viewed within the military as a direct rejection of Xi’s authority.
“They were prepared to arrest people, but they clearly underestimated the internal backlash,” Hu said.
According to Hu, if Beijing continues pressing ahead with the cases against Zhang Youxia and Liu without making substantive adjustments, the CMC risks losing effective control over China’s massive military apparatus.
“The regime’s political and security costs will far outweigh the benefit of removing a few individuals,” Hu said.
Chinese state media Xinhua reported that on Jan. 27—three days after Zhang Youxia’s removal—Xi appeared publicly for the first time since the purge, meeting Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. Official photographs showed Xi delivering remarks, but no reference was made to the military situation.
Zhang Shengmin has spent most of his career in political and disciplinary roles and lacks operational combat experience, Yuan said, while professional military officers continue to dominate the PLA’s command system.
China’s military has long operated under a dual structure that separates political oversight from professional military command. The targeting of Zhang Youxia and Liu—both emblematic of the operational officer system—is widely seen within the PLA as disrupting that internal balance, Yuan said, which helps explain the rapid spread of resistance.
Multiple sources told The Epoch Times that unless the regime’s leadership reverses course or releases the two generals, the CMC could gradually lose its ability to exercise absolute command over China’s roughly 2 million active-duty troops.
Wang Xin contributed to this report.
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Xi needs to look up “Praetorian Guard” and maybe he’ll learn something about pissing off his own military.
CC
The PLA has always operated almost as a state within the state, including running its own factories and farms, with all the opportunity for corruption that entails. By doing so, it was not only supporting but funding itself, giving it an unprecedented independence from the national government and Party.
“From commanders to rank-and-file soldiers, dissatisfaction with the Central Military Commission is spreading.
One can only hope this would happen with the Russian or Ukrainian military.
They just become militarily lousy.
Their Communism is failing ...in real time! 😁
Bkmk
Sounds like current events in Russia, Putin and his military. Putin has lost over 1 million men with very little return.
“Putin has lost over 1 million men with very little return”
Wrong. He has ripped out the industrial heartland of Ukraine, seized most of their coal mines and rare earths and now has incorporated these lands into the Russian Federation. He has also built a powerful military machine from the corrupt thing it was. He has forged a new reality with China and North Korea and turned India into a trade partner. The cost was high but he has dispelled the idea that Russia as only a gas station with nukes.
China is just having a bad couple of weeks. It is winter, everyone is cooped up n the house. The kids are bickering. And no one wants to take out the trash.
I think we can take “invading Taiwan” off the table until next fall.
I will argue that Putin has watched as what he thought was a powerful military is destroyed over and over in the field.
Meanwhile, his railroads, bridges, logistical capabilities and oil refineries are systematically being destroyed ever single day. He has lost his navy in the Black Sea. His navy in the Baltic Sea is under constant surveillance and rendered ineffective. He has lost uncountable air planes that were just sitting on the ground.
He has lost contact with the isolated Kaliningrad Oblast
that is now surrounded and just withering on the vine
He was kicked out of Syria and has no effective presence in the Mediterranen. He has lost his presence in the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela.
His vaunted air defenses sold all around the world have been shown as inadequate. He can’t sell Russian weapons even if he could still make them.
He has sent to their deaths thousands of North Korean, Chinese and African soldiers who die quickly when pressed into battle at the front.
His people go hungry because they can no longer afford to purchase the imported potatos.
Did he?
He exhausted his armored ranks. He relies on foreign troops from North Korea and Africa to fight on the front lines. He has wasted a generation of young men in a country that is already facing a demographic cliff. His industrial base is running on fumes. Anything gained in Ukraine is resources only…the means of production has been ruined and the infrastructure is a mess.
When your “superpower” relies on North Korea and Iran for munitions…you are no longer a superpower. And Iran will cease to be an ally by Mardi Gras.
Structural Imbalance at Top
China-based military scholar Yuan, who gave only his surname out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that a CMC structure dominated by Xi and Zhang Shengmin is ill-equipped to command a modern fighting force.
Zhang Shengmin has spent most of his career in political and disciplinary roles and lacks operational combat experience, Yuan said, while professional military officers continue to dominate the PLA’s command system.
China’s military has long operated under a dual structure that separates political oversight from professional military command. The targeting of Zhang Youxia and Liu—both emblematic of the operational officer system—is widely seen within the PLA as disrupting that internal balance, Yuan said, which helps explain the rapid spread of resistance.
Multiple sources told The Epoch Times that unless the regime’s leadership reverses course or releases the two generals, the CMC could gradually lose its ability to exercise absolute command over China’s roughly 2 million active-duty troops.
Gradually lose ability to exercise absolute command? Looks fast to me.
Internal orders issued by China’s top military authority have met widespread resistance at the grassroots level following the purge of two of the country’s most senior generals,
time for a coup?
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