Shocking cracks in CCP elite as Xi Jinping cleans house—targeting childhood friend Zhang Youxia

The vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, Zhang Yuxia, was officially announced to be under investigation for serious violations of rules and laws on January 24th. The effects are still spreading. Wu Guoguang, a senior researcher at the China Economy and Institutions Research Center at Stanford University's International Institute, talks about why Xi Jinping is cleaning out Zhang Yuxia and who is next. Wu Guoguang predicts that Xi Jinping's cleaning will not end but will speed up and the next cut will often go to the person closest to him. For more details, please pay attention to today's main content. Cracks appear inside the top levels of the Communist Party of China. Xi Jinping's next round will clean out him. A student studying abroad was tricked by a fake Chinese consulate, flew back to the country and transferred over 3 million yuan. A Chinese couple in Sapporo faked rental agreements to cheat the Japanese government out of 3.34 million yuan in subsidies and got arrested. First, let's focus on cracks appear inside the top levels of the Communist Party of China. Xi Jinping's next round will clean out him. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the Communist Party of China held a meeting on February 2nd and announced the end of the representative status for several National People's Congress delegates, including people from the military industry system. However, what caught a lot of attention from outside is that this meeting did not touch the two high-level army people, Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli, who were already officially announced to have fallen. Based on public information, the two still keep their National People's Congress representative status and both belong to the military and armed police delegate groups. This result is clearly not what most people outside expected. The meeting also did not deal with the representative status issues in the army system and at the same time did not touch people like Sun Xiaochang and Wang Shangxi, who were already reported by officials to have fallen, and their National People's Congress representative status is still kept. The big focus that outside people paid a lot of attention to before, whether to remove the representative status of Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli, ended up with no progress at all. This meeting was led by Zhao Leji, the chairman of the National People's Congress. Based on the 15th announcement of the 14th National People's Congress Standing Committee released after the meeting, the three people whose representative status was ended are Zhou Xinmin, Luo Qi, and Liu Kangli. Because of this, the actual number of National People's Congress representatives went from the original 2,900 to 2,897. Public information shows that the three people whose National People's Congress representative status was ended this time are Zhou Xinmin, Luo Qi, and Liu Kangli. Among them, Zhou Xinmin was once the chairman and party group secretary of China Aviation Industry Corporation Limited. Luo Qi is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and was once the chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation. Liu Kangli is also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was once the director of the China Academy of Engineering Physics. The three people above have long worked in fields like aviation and nuclear energy and have close ties to the military industry system. A person close to the Communist Party of China's political situation, Jin Zhi, said that from what he knows, the military once sent a proposal to the National People's Congress about removing the National People's Congress representative status of Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli and asked the People's Congress side to approve it. He said that if the related proposal was not sent, this National People's Congress Standing Committee meeting itself had no need to be held because by usual practice, the National People's Congress Standing Committee will hold a regular meeting at the end of February to prepare for the national two sessions. Jin Zhi said that the related proposal did not get passed at this Standing Committee meeting in the end. If this is true, it means that the National People's Congress system did not match up with Xi Jinping's political plans on key issues and it also shows that the relationship between Zhao Lijian and Xi Jinping might have cracks. A scholar of constitutional government in mainland China, Huang Tian, said that from a political logic view, the National People's Congress Standing Committee has a lot of room to decide on handling representative status issues and choosing to end the status of some individual representatives does not break the rules. But if you look at it combined with the real way the Communist Party of China's power works, this way of only handling side people and not touching the main targets for now is not normal. He also pointed out that in the Communist Party of China's past anti-corruption and army cleanup rhythms, once high-level generals in the army are clearly handled, the adjustment of representative status at the National People's Congress level is usually just a follow-up step, not left aside for a long time or avoided on purpose. Comparing past cases of high-level army people in the Central Military Commission like Guo Baxiang, Xu Kaihou, Bang Binghui, the Communist Party of China's People's Congress representative status is usually handled within a few months after the political decision is made. And once it goes into the People's Congress meeting process, it is rare to have a situation where the meeting is held but the main targets are not handled. After Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli were investigated, the National People's Congress Standing Committee held a meeting soon after but did not handle their representative status. And this kind of situation is not common in past practices. Huang Tian raised questions about this. He said that the time when Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli were officially announced to be under investigation was January 24, 2026 and the National People's Congress Standing Committee then held a meeting on February 2, but in the end did not end the two people's National People's Congress representative status. The key problem is not that only a few days passed after the investigation was announced but that the National People's Congress Standing Committee already held the meeting yet did not handle the related main targets. He thinks that in past similar cases, if the investigation time is still short, the related issues usually do not go into the National People's Congress meeting process. Once it goes into the meeting agenda, the handling result is often done quickly. In the past, there was no example of the meeting is already held but on purpose avoiding handling the most main targets. About the choice of the Communist Party of China's People's Congress Standing Committee this time to avoid and not move on Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli, another scholar Mr. He analyzed that the way the National People's Congress Standing Committee handled this itself has sent a strong signal to the outside. This shows that inside the Communist Party of China on some big power issues, there is still no agreement, especially on issues of military commission power and government system work. Because of unhappiness with Xi, the push is not smooth. Mr. He pointed out that the related issues did not form a handling result at the People's Congress level, which shows that the top levels of the Communist Party of China still have different views on key problems, and the related talks are not finished. Mr. He said that this time the National People's Congress Standing Committee could not form a result on the main issues, which shows the related splits have shown up on military power problems. This is not the People's Congress suddenly being tough, but Xi Jinping's related power plans could not move forward at key points. The related steps are slow to form handling results, which also shows that top decision-making faces push back in real work. Since the related events happened on January 24, the public work of the Central Military Commission has kept being in an unusual state. Official channels have not shown reports of the military commission holding meetings, group activities, or top-level movements, and the People's Liberation Army newspaper website also has not put out regular reports about military commission work. On February 6, the China Military Network shared an article from the People's Daily titled Always Keep the Warmth and Cold of Officers and Soldiers in Mind, Xi Jinping's Deep Care. The whole article uses a look-back style to describe scenes of Xi Jinping visiting troops and caring about basic-level officers and soldiers in recent years with a warm tone, but it does not touch any information about current military commission work or real decision-making levels. Analysis people point out that when the Central Military Commission level has long lacked public activity information, this kind of propaganda articles focused on feeling stories being pushed out a lot makes it easier for outside people to notice that the real work situation of the current military power system has differences from the story the officials show to the outside. Up to now, the related issues around Zhang Yuxia and Liu Zhenli still have not formed clear results at the system level, and the real work state of the Central Military Commission and its future direction still need more watching. As for who Xi Jinping's big cleaning knife will swing at, Wu Guoguang, a senior researcher at the China Economy and Institutions Research Center at Stanford University's International Institute, points out that in total power politics, there is a hard rule. The top ruler will never allow one group to be too big under himself, and this is why Zhang Yuxia's end cannot be seen alone. If the important army people Qi Weidong and Miao Hua had not had problems one after another before, then Zhang Yuxia might still be safe. But because they were already cleaned out, Zhang Yuxia had to be cleaned out. The reason is simple. When all non-Z group military supports are pulled out, the only one that could still form a power focus point is just Zhang Yuxia himself. This is not personal bad feelings, this is structure logic. Wu Guoguang points out that based on Stalin logic to focus power, you must keep cleaning. When Xi Jinping just got in power, he first cleaned out Zhang Zemin's people and Hu Jintao's people, but at that time he did not have that much strength to fully clean out the old forces that were deeply rooted, so he needed to split them, find allies among them. For example, using Meng Jianzhu to clean out Zhou Yongkang, when the old forces were cut down almost, then the second step is to clean out the people who once helped him. Typical examples are Sun Lijun and Fu Jinhua. They were from Meng Jianzhu's system, belonging to allies who were used. He said that when these are done, at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the ones left are basically people Xi Jinping himself promoted. This goes into the third step, cleaning his own close people. The Zhang Yuxia thing is actually cleaning to the point of cleaning out his own childhood friend, meaning friends who grew up together because their dads knew each other and kept close ties for a long time. Very close people are cleaned out. Wu Guoguang says straight that the meaning of Zhang Yuxia being cleaned is not that Zhang Yuxia did something wrong, but that Zhang Yuxia is already that kind of person. Xi Jinping must clean. Cleaning to childhood friends, cleaning to very close people. This shows that power is already highly focused on Xi Jinping one person. And it also shows Xi Jinping can no longer stand any existence that is not fully under control. Wu Guoguang says that from this moment, the cleaning will go into a new stage. This is not for safety, but for mind sure feeling. The logic behind this is the more you clean, the more total power, your personal power gets bigger. And the more power is focused, the easier your decisions are done. And in the end, it will bring ruling crisis. The result must be messing things up, whether it's dynamic zero or China's economy going down. All are such problems. Wu Guoguang predicts that Xi Jinping will keep cleaning and will clean people even closer to him, not because he is not tough enough, but because he has no other choice. When a government steady can only rely on keeping cutting people to keep, what is really not steady is not the cut people, but the person holding the knife. Next focus on tricked by a fake Chinese consulate. A student studying abroad flew back to the country and transferred over 3 million yuan. Shanghai police recently stopped a big trick case. A student studying abroad believed a fake call from a got pulled into a carefully planned story-like trick and flew back to the country on purpose to transfer over 3 million yuan to a safe account. From combined media reports, the victim Feifei got a call from what was said to be the Chinese embassy in the US. The other side said someone used her passport info without permission and told her to report the case at the Guangzhou City Public Security Bureau. Feifei connected through the other side's phone transfer to what was said to be the Guangzhou City Public Security Bureau. The other side showed Feifei their office place without showing traces, and also, by accident, let Feifei hear their talk about handling the case. The so-called official phone, police ID, case handling process, these things that look like see-to-believe proofs, made Feifei believe that she was really pulled into a big case. In the next half month, Feifei took turns talking on the line every day with the so-called police and prosecutors, and reported her travel as asked, and was not allowed to contact family or friends. When handing over the so-called bail money, Feifei thought only her bank card in the country had enough balance. She wanted to fly back to her hometown to do it, but the other side asked for payment right away, so she bought the nearest flight to Shanghai. On November 5, 2025, Feifei transferred 3.47 million yuan to the so-called safe account provided by the other side. In the end, Shanghai police, through working with police from other places, successfully kept the 2.47 million yuan that had not been moved abroad yet, and 1.5 kilograms of gold that had been changed by the trick people and put into an international mail package. Next, focus on a Chinese couple in Sapporo faked rental agreements to cheat the Japanese government out of 3.34 million yen in subsidies, and got arrested. Recently, a pair of Chinese husband and wife who run a trade company in Sapporo city are suspected of using faked rental contracts during a pandemic time to cheat the Japanese government out of 3.34 million yen in rent support payments. Local police after checking recently arrested the two people. Based on reports from Sapporo TV, STV, the two arrested suspects are 54-year-old trade company president Tao Zifeng, who is called Qi Yang Dexin, and his 53-year-old wife Yang Chunfeng. The company mainly makes and sells hotel items like shampoo and body wash made from oil and leather of a special product from Hokkaido. During the pandemic, the Japanese government started rent support payments to help shops whose sales dropped a lot because of the pandemic pay rent. It is worth noting that the application for this help has strict time rules, must prove that on March 31, 2020, the rental contract really existed and was good. Sapporo police's check found that the two applied for rent support payments with a warehouse in North District of Sapporo City and a store in Odoru City. However, the check shows that for these places on March 31, some contracts had already ended, some had not even been signed yet. The two are suspected of using faked papers to lie to the government that there were good rental ties at that time, and so got the subsidies of 3.34 million yen without right. Police said that because of the need for checking, they will not say now if the two admit the suspect or what they said. Right now, police are carefully checking the reason for the crime and if there are other crimes.