China’s top general was fired by President Xi Jinping following bombshell accusations of leaking top secrets to one of the Asian superpower’s biggest rivals, according to a report.
Gen. Zhang Youxia, 75, was ousted from his high-ranking role as vice chairman of the decision-making body Central Military Commission and placed under investigation as Xi purges the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army. Zhang was once seen as Xi’s most trusted military ally, ranking second only to the president in the chain of command.
The Chinese Defense Ministry announced Saturday that Zhang is “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law,” but did not disclose further details.
A Wall Street Journal report revealed that Zhang was accused of leaking information about China’s nuclear weapons program to the U.S. and accepting bribes, citing people familiar with a high-level briefing on Saturday morning.
Sources told the outlet that the most shocking allegation disclosed in the closed-door briefing, attended by high-ranking military officials, was that Zhang spilled core technical data on China’s nuclear weapons to the U.S.
The security breach was discovered during a probe into Gu Jun, the former general manager of the state-owned China National Nuclear Corp. that oversees the country’s civilian and military nuclear programs, according to the Journal. No further details on the leak were disclosed during the briefing, sources told the outlet.
Zhang was also accused of undermining party unity, abusing his authority within the Central Military Commission, and accepting large sums of money in exchange for promotions in the procurement system for military hardware.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily Beast on Sunday. In a statement to the Journal, spokesperson Liu Pengyu said the investigation into Zhang proves the party’s commitment to “a full-coverage, zero-tolerance approach to combating corruption.”
“This move is unprecedented in the history of the Chinese military and represents the total annihilation of the high command,” Christopher Johnson, a former CIA analyst and president of consulting firm China Strategies Group, told The New York Times. “The purging of even a childhood friend in Zhang Youxia shows there now are no limits to Xi’s anti-graft zeal.”
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