China’s Top Military General Accused Of Leaking Nuclear Secrets To US, Accepting Bribes: Report

Last Updated:January 27, 2026, 07:41 IST

China’s most senior uniformed officer Zhang Youxia has been accused in an internal briefing of leaking nuclear secrets to the US and taking bribes for military promotions.

Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (Photo: AP)

China’s most senior uniformed officer, General Zhang Youxia, who has been under investigation in an extraordinary shake-up of the country’s military leadership, has been accused of leaking sensitive nuclear-weapons information to the United States and accepting bribes for official promotions, the Wall Street Journal reported.

China’s defence ministry announced on Saturday that Zhang, the senior vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and General Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department, were being investigated for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law".

However, citing people familiar with a closed-door briefing attended by senior military officers, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zhang faces far-reaching allegations, including passing core technical data on China’s nuclear arsenal to US authorities and taking large sums of money in exchange for promoting officers within the military’s powerful procurement system.

According to the report, Zhang was also accused of forming political cliques that undermined Communist Party unity and abusing his authority within the CMC, the party’s top military decision-making body.

The report said authorities were scrutinising his oversight of a major agency responsible for weapons research, development and procurement, where he allegedly approved promotions in return for bribes.

The evidence in the case partly stems from an investigation into Gu Jun, the former head of China Nuclear Corp., a state-owned company overseeing China’s civilian and military nuclear programmes.

Beijing announced earlier this week that Gu was under investigation for severe disciplinary violations, and officials later linked that probe to a security breach in the nuclear sector.

In a statement to the Journal, Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said the investigation underscored Beijing’s “zero-tolerance approach to combating corruption."

Zhang, long viewed as President Xi Jinping’s closest military ally, is a member of the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo and one of China’s few top officers with combat experience.

He fought in border conflicts with Vietnam in 1979 and 1984 and had been retained on the CMC beyond the typical retirement age, a move that US defence officials previously said reflected Xi’s reliance on him.

Zhang, 75, is China’s highest-ranked general and shares the CMC vice chairman post with Zhang Shengmin, who was promoted last year after another senior officer was purged in a corruption crackdown.

Both men rank below Xi, who has chaired the CMC since 2012.

The investigation comes amid Xi’s sweeping anti-graft campaign inside the People’s Liberation Army, which has intensified since 2023.

The crackdown has already ensnared multiple CMC members, two former defence ministers, and senior commanders across several branches of the armed forces.

The Journal reported that Xi has ordered a task force to conduct a deep-dive investigation into Zhang’s earlier commands and that authorities have seized mobile devices from officers linked to Zhang and Liu as scrutiny spreads through the military hierarchy.

While official Chinese statements have confirmed only that an investigation is underway, analysts quoted by the Journal warned that the purge of such senior figures could disrupt military readiness in the short term even as it strengthens Xi’s political control over the armed forces.

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