WSJ: Purged Chinese General Zhang Accused of Leaking Nuclear Secrets to US

In a revelation that fundamentally alters the understanding of Beijing’s recent military upheaval, The Wall Street Journal reports that General Zhang Youxia—the recently purged Vice Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC)—is accused of leaking highly classified technical data on Beijing’s nuclear arsenal to the United States.
The stunning allegation provides the first concrete explanation for the abrupt downfall of President Xi Jinping’s closest military ally. While the Chinese Ministry of National Defense officially cited “serious violations of discipline and law” in its Saturday announcement regarding the investigation into Zhang and Joint Staff Chief Gen. Liu Zhenli, sources familiar with internal high-level briefings told the Journal that the charges amount to treason.
The Ultimate Betrayal
Zhang, 75, was not merely a senior officer; he was a “princeling” with deep personal ties to Xi and the second-most powerful figure in the Chinese military hierarchy. If the accusations are accurate, the transmission of “core technical data” regarding nuclear warheads, missile telemetry, or command protocols would represent perhaps the most damaging intelligence breach in the history of the People’s Republic of China.
Connecting the Dots on the Rocket Force
This revelation casts the relentless purges of the PLA Rocket Force—which oversees China’s nuclear missiles—in a chilling new light. It suggests that the crackdown, which began in 2023 with the removal of the force’s commanders and later Defense Minister Li Shangfu, was not simply about graft or embezzlement, but a frantic counter-intelligence operation aimed at plugging a massive leak at the top of the nuclear command structure.
The accusation implies that Washington may have possessed intimate, real-time knowledge of Chinese strategic capabilities and vulnerabilities for years. Analysts suggest this intelligence coup could explain recent shifts in U.S. defense posturing in the Indo-Pacific, as American planners would have been operating with the opponent’s playbook in hand. For Xi Jinping, the betrayal by his most trusted general likely signals a period of extreme paranoia and potentially paralyzed decision-making within the PLA.