2026.1.30 Beijing struck on the 24th, purging Xi’s closest military ally under the safe label of “corruption.” The next day, a tidy WSJ foreign-bureau “exclusive” alleged a nuclear leak, convenient, containable, familiar. It wasn’t discovery; it was packaging. NFSC had already… https://t.co/nrbHttXv4Z pic.twitter.com/Oq9c236GAU
— NFSC Speaks (@NFSCSpeak) January 30, 2026
The fall of Zhang Youxi, China’s top uniformed military officer, in President Xi Jinping’s purge might have to do with corruption, espionage and the PLA’s operational readiness. Chinese missiles were found to have been filled with water instead of fuel, which led to the removal of the PLA Rocket Force’s leadership in 2023 and 2024. Zhang is said to have passed on China’s nuclear secrets to the US, and could be linked to the Rocket Force purge.
Nuclear missiles stood ready in silos in western China to fly thousands of kilometres at the press of a button. However, some of them might not have fired at all in a crunch situation. That’s because the lids of the silos wouldn’t have opened, and the missiles were filled with water, and not fuel, according to reports that cited US intelligence. That was behind the firing of China’s Rocket Force leadership in 2024, and might have even now led to the fall of General Zhang Youxia.
Zhang Youxia was China’s top uniformed officer and an aide of President Xi Jinping. After Xi, Zhang was the senior-most in China’s Military Commission, which is the country’s top military command body.
Xi’s closest military ally was purged on January 24, stamped with the usual corruption label, and only then did a Wall Street Journal nuclear leak story appear the next day, tidy and safe and easy to digest. That is not how discovery works. NFSC already blew the story open, so Beijing needed something smaller and cleaner to redirect attention and make the purge look procedural instead of political. In China, the excuse always follows the power move. Timing is not background noise. It is the confession.
h/t Emeraldlight