By Cai Siyun
Ten days after Chinese authorities announced that Zhang Youxia—former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Chinese Communist Party’s highest military body—had “run into trouble,” signs of large-scale People’s Liberation Army (PLA) movements have appeared across multiple regions of China.
Observers note that synchronized activity across all theater commands and service branches is highly unusual. Some analysts believe these movements may reflect contingency plans Zhang prepared in advance. Even more striking, one active-duty army commander is reported to have issued a stark warning: if Xi Jinping dares to inspect his unit, “he will leave but never return.”
Unusual large-scale military movements across China
Since Zhang Youxia’s fall, videos circulating online show what appear to be missile launch vehicles, tanks, and armored personnel carriers moving north along highways in Jiangsu Province, including Yixing, Xuzhou, and Taizhou.
At the same time, military vehicles, troop transports, engineering units, and armed helicopters have been sighted in Guangdong, Fujian, Anhui, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Tianjin, and Beijing’s Changping district. Some footage shows large numbers of fully armed soldiers deployed on city streets, with temporary nighttime roadblocks and ad hoc troop assemblies.
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In the early hours of Feb. 2, residents in Pingle County, Guangxi, filmed long convoys of military trucks speeding along highways. Public information indicates that the region is home to the PLA Southern Theater Command’s 74th and 75th Group Armies.
These developments have raised a basic but unsettling question: with no public statements of loyalty to Xi Jinping from any theater command or major service branch, how could Xi possibly authorize or control such large-scale, cross-regional troop movements?
‘Xi no longer commands the army’
On Feb. 2, Yao Cheng, a former PLA Navy lieutenant colonel now living overseas, released a video analyzing the situation. He argued that a nationwide, tightly synchronized mobilization of this scale could not occur without prior coordination—and almost certainly did not originate with Xi Jinping.
According to Yao, years of relentless purges and political campaigns under Xi have exhausted and alienated the officer corps. “The military is fed up with him,” Yao said bluntly. “Xi can no longer command the troops.”
Yao believes Zhang Youxia anticipated Xi’s move against him and prepared contingency plans in advance. The current cross-theater coordination, he argues, bears the hallmarks of those preparations.
He further claimed that Beijing is now effectively surrounded. Units from the Northern Theater Command’s 79th Group Army have moved south; Shandong’s 80th Group Army has mobilized; and the Central Theater Command’s 81st, 82nd, and 83rd Group Armies are also in motion. “Every possible escape route has been blocked,” Yao said, comparing the operation to the encirclement strategies used in PLA plans for a Taiwan contingency.
A senior commander speaks: fear, purges, and total reorganization
On the same day, Du Wen, a former senior official in Inner Mongolia turned independent commentator, published an article claiming that his recent campaign to rescue families of detained soldiers had drawn strong responses. He said he had been contacted by high-ranking figures within the PLA.
Du relayed information from one serving army commander who described the current internal climate. According to this officer, all personnel are now forced to declare loyalty to the “Party Central Committee and Xi Jinping”—not only verbally, but through written pledges, guarantees, and ideological self-criticism reports.
Privately, many officers are willing to make these declarations. Publicly, however, they refuse—out of fear of retaliation from remnants of Zhang Youxia’s network. This pattern, the commander said, is widespread across the PLA and has left Xi and political commissars deeply embarrassed and alarmed. It also explains why no senior officers have appeared in state media to pledge loyalty.
The commander emphasized that Zhang Youxia controlled real power in the military for decades—from group army commander to military region commander to head of the CMC’s Equipment Development Department. Every post he held directly shaped officers’ careers and involved extensive patronage networks.
“Anyone he promoted, approved, or signed off on was bound to him,” the commander said. Those individuals, in turn, promoted others—who are now all labeled as Zhang’s “residual faction” and marked for elimination. None, he warned, will escape.
According to the commander, PLA Daily—the military’s official newspaper—has already sent a clear signal by calling for “changing feathers to be reborn,” a phrase widely interpreted as total reorganization of the armed forces. Purges, he said, are only a matter of time.
“This is brutally cruel,” he said. “The fear is bottomless, and the consequences are unimaginable.”
He added that many officers who once had close contact with Zhang have now been ordered to take leave away from their posts. Others with only minor connections have voluntarily requested leave, most of which has been approved. However, transfers out of the military are categorically forbidden.
Why armed rebellion is so difficult
The commander acknowledged that launching an armed revolt in China is extraordinarily difficult. The central obstacle, he said, is that generals rarely control significant forces directly. His own immediate command extends only to his guard company—just over one hundred soldiers.
To mobilize larger units, a commander must rely on a long chain: division commanders, regiment commanders, battalion leaders, and company officers. Not all are trusted allies, and the risk of exposure is immense. With modern communications, a single leak would unravel everything.
Logistics present another barrier. Even if weapons are available locally, ammunition and supplies are often stored across provinces and theater commands, requiring complex coordination.
Yet despite these constraints, the commander issued an extraordinary declaration.
“All I need is one opportunity,” he said. “If Xi Jinping comes to inspect our unit tomorrow, I guarantee he won’t live to see the sun set. I could kill him with my own hands. The only question is—when will he come? I’m waiting for that day.”
Online reactions have been furious and polarized. Some commenters wrote: “A national army forced to pledge loyalty to one man—how absurd is that? Soldiers should defend the people, not an ignorant and arrogant fool.” Others called the Chinese Communist Party “a vast criminal syndicate,” saying soldiers die not in battle but through internal struggle, poisoning, and assassination.
Still others urged immediate rebellion, arguing that delay only guarantees destruction. “Xi has offended everyone,” one comment read. “The people want him gone. This is the tide of history—only a leader is missing.”