Xi Jinping’s anticorruption drive sweeps up senior Chinese military chiefs

As thousands of Chinese government officials gathered in Beijing for China’s annual legislative meetings known as the “two sessions” this month, at least a dozen active and retired military officers were absent from the proceedings. Among the absentees was General Zhang Youxia, who has been under investigation since late January for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law”, according to China’s state Xinhua news agency.

Zhang is one of the highest-ranking officials to be caught up in a wider anticorruption sweep that has become a hallmark of Xi Jinping’s long tenure as president and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

Xi launched the initiative shortly after rising to power in 2012, setting off an “unprecedented anticorruption storm” that targeted “both high-flying ‘tigers’ and lower-level ‘flies'” across China’s state, military, and Communist Party apparatus, according to a Xinhua report last year.

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