TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan Defense Minister Wellington Koo said Monday that the island is watching China’s senior command for signs of instability after Beijing disclosed a disciplinary probe into Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia. The case has sharpened concern in Taipei that internal political purges in Beijing could feed into cross-strait risk calculations, Jan. 26, 2026.
Koo told lawmakers, in comments reported by Reuters, that Taiwan would “continue to closely monitor abnormal changes” in China’s leadership and would not ease readiness because Beijing “has never abandoned the use of force” to bring Taiwan under its control.
He said Taiwan’s assessment would not hinge on any single personnel move. Instead, officials will weigh a broader mix of military and political indicators, drawing on joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and intelligence-sharing with partners as Chinese aircraft and ships continue to operate around Taiwan.
What the Zhang Youxia probe signals inside the PLA
China’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it had opened an investigation into Zhang Youxia and Central Military Commission member Liu Zhenli for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law,” language commonly used by Chinese authorities for corruption and related offenses, according to a separate Reuters report.
Zhang Youxia, 75, is a Politburo member and one of the few top commanders with combat experience, having fought in China’s 1979 border war with Vietnam. Channel News Asia reported that Zhang Youxia’s portfolio has included military operations, training and weapons procurement, placing him at the center of the People’s Liberation Army modernization push.
The Defense Ministry statement offered no details about the alleged wrongdoing. The Associated Press reported that the investigation adds to an anti-corruption drive that has periodically swept up senior officers and is widely seen by analysts as both a discipline campaign and a test of loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who chairs the commission.
Why Taiwan is watching the Zhang Youxia shake-up so closely
For Taipei, any uncertainty at the top of China’s military matters less for its internal politics than for what it could mean operationally: whether routine pressure around Taiwan intensifies, pauses or becomes harder to predict. Koo emphasized that Taiwan is looking for patterns—exercise activity, deployments, messaging and command signals—rather than trying to infer intent from one headline-making investigation.
Earlier purges set the backdrop
The Zhang Youxia case arrives after years of rolling turbulence in China’s defense establishment. In October 2023, Beijing abruptly removed Defense Minister Li Shangfu after he vanished from public view, an episode Reuters described as raising questions about stability within Xi’s leadership team. A later Reuters analysis said the 2023 crackdown that hit the Rocket Force—custodian of key missile capabilities—appeared broader than a single “bad apple.” Then, in October 2025, China expelled Central Military Commission vice chair He Weidong and political officer Miao Hua in a move Reuters called among the most senior purges of the campaign.
Taiwan’s defense officials say the lesson is to focus on what China’s forces do, not only on who holds which title. Even as the Zhang Youxia probe ripples through Beijing’s hierarchy, Taipei’s military posture—watch, verify and prepare—remains unchanged.
