The axeing of China's top military leader is huge!

General Zhang Youxia was a favoured son in the eyes of President Xi Zinping. He was vice chairman of the Central Military Commission which is headed by Xi, a combat veteran and a man who, when visiting the West, gave the impression of being superlatively confident that whatever he said or did he had the backing of his leader. Aged 75, he was already well past retirement but Xi wanted him to stay on. Now out of the blue the favoured son is out, finished, under investigation for corruption and who knows what else. The Chinese military hierarchy has been beset with corruption and Xi has made a point of trying to eliminate it for years. But Zhang was never before under suspicion, even though at one point in his career he was in charge of weapons procurement, a golden opportunity for bribery and corruption. There are all kinds of stories doing the rounds about why Zhang has been axed, one of them, reported by The Wall Street Journal, that he passed confidential secrets about China's nuclear weapons to the Americans. This all adds to the drama of the story but it seems beyond belief that a trusted military adviser to Xi would spill nuclear secrets to the US. Indeed, Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden's national security adviser and a very smart guy, told The New York Times that Zhang never revealed anything he shouldn't when they met and nuclear weapons were discussed. He said it was always in very general, broad terms, no secrets divulged. So what is it really about? The obvious anmswer is that Xi has begun to worry that Zhang was surrounding himself with more power than was appropriate and that, therefore, he posed a potential threat to Xi's leadership. Perhaps Taiwan is at the heart of it. Xi wants to take control of Taiwan by 2027, by whatever means, and Zhang, being a combat veteran in the war between China and Vietnam, has maybe been warning a military operation could not be completed without huge risks. We will never know the full story because this is China which likes to keep its secrets secret. But the sacking and imminent charging of Zhang is a mighty blow to the stability of the Xi leadership regime. BUY AND READ AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. CHECK IT OUT ON AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS OR WATERSTONES