Over the weekend, it emerged that authorities in China have opened investigations into two senior figures at the top of the People's Liberation Army for "serious disciplinary violations" — a phrase commonly used in Chinese official communications to refer to corruption.
Those affected include top general Zhang Youxia, who is one of President Xi Jinping's closest allies in the military and one of the two deputy chairmen of the powerful Central Military Commission. Another senior general, Liu Zhenli, is also being investigated. Both have been removed from their posts.
The Central Military Commission is the collective command body overseeing all of China's armed forces — the army, navy, air force and the nuclear-armed rocket forces — as well as the armed police and the militia. Its chairman is Xi, who, in addition to being the country's president, also serves as the ruling Communist Party's general secretary.
