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Taiwan will use a range of joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance methods, as well as intelligence-sharing, to "grasp" China's possible intentions, says its defence minister.Taiwan is monitoring what it called "abnormal" changes to China's military leadership after its most senior general was put under investigation, and will not lower its guard as the threat level remains high, the defence minister said on Monday (Jan 26). China announced on Saturday that Zhang Youxia, second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, and another senior officer, Liu Zhenli, were under investigation ⁠for suspected serious violations of discipline and...

According to unconfirmed reports, General Zhang Youxia, China’s vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), sent a company of troops (over a hundred or more) to the government’s Yingxi Hotel in western Beijing on 18 January. Their mission was to arrest Xi Jinping. A few hours before, the Chinese president – alerted by an informant – set in motion countermeasures. Troops under the command of Cao Qi, head of Xi’s Central Guards Bureau, ambushed Zhang’s soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight at Yangxi Hotel, nine guards were reportedly killed along with dozens of Zhang Youxia’s soldiers. Throughout China, military movements have...

“IN AN UNCERTAIN world, China is the biggest certainty.” So proclaimed a Chinese spokesman in December. Amid a war in Europe, turmoil in the Middle East and America’s rewriting of the geopolitical order, some in the West may be inclined to agree. As The Economist went to press, Britain’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was visiting China’s president, Xi Jinping, the latest among a series of Western leaders who have headed to Beijing in search of deals and dependability. Yet in recent days politics in China has proved anything but certain. On January 24th the defence ministry said that the...

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...

Yesterday, we were all sort of stunned to find that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping had summarily dismissed and had placed under investigation General Zhang Youxia, the now-former vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission; see New Round of Purges Wrack the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Defense Establishment – RedState. The removal of Zhang meant 37 of the 81 generals appointed since October 2022 were either under arrest or had simply disappeared. The initial reports said Zhang was removed because he “undermined Xi’s authority, abetted political and corruption problems that impaired the party’s leadership over the armed forces, and damaged...

Perhaps US intelligence has an idea about who is increasingly the real power behind the throne in BeijingXi Jinping effectively vanished in July and the first half of August. Some China watchers speculated that his unexplained absence was a sign he was losing his grip on power. But he has since reappeared and been very visible again. At the end of the month, he visited Tibet, then indulged in a high-profile, backslapping meeting with Vladimir Putin and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tianjin. He capped off his busy two weeks with the September 3 military parade in Beijing...