China’s senior military general Zhang Youxia is under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday, marking the latest high-profile case in a sweeping purge of the armed forces.

Zhang, 75, the senior of the two vice chairmen of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), is among the most prominent figures to be targeted in a campaign analysts say is aimed at reforming the military and ensuring loyalty to President Xi Jinping, who also chairs the commission.

In a separate statement, the ministry said another CMC member, Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the commission’s Joint Staff Department, has also been placed under investigation by the ruling Communist Party. No details were provided on the alleged wrongdoing in either case.

Zhang joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1968 and rose through the ground forces to become one of the military’s most influential leaders. The CMC is China’s top military decision-making body.

The latest investigations follow the expulsion last October of the commission’s other vice chairman, He Weidong, who was replaced by commission member Zhang Shengmin. In 2024, the party also expelled two former defense ministers over corruption charges.

The military purge forms part of President Xi’s broader anti-corruption drive, which has punished more than 200,000 officials since he came to power in 2012.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration on Friday released a new National Defense Strategy acknowledging China as a military power that must be deterred from dominating the United States or its allies.

“This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle,” the strategy said. “Rather, a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible.”