Zhang Youxia

I think that Mr. Xi, of course, is a leader who's facing considerable challenges domestically.

You know, the purge of 100, more than 100 senior military officers, and most recently the accusation that Zhang Youxia, the former leading uniformed officer in China's Central Military Commission, not only was corrupt, but according to the New China News Agency, engaged in cliques, disloyalty to the party by cliques.

Of course, in China, the army is loyal to the Chinese Communist Party, not to the Chinese state.

So it seems that in addition to domestic economic failings, that there are challenges to Mr. Xi's leadership from within factions of the party as represented by the military.

So they really could not be more different in how they approach these things.

And the last point I'll make, Minaj, is that You know, we just got great evidence of this today with the final announcement about the purge of Zhang Youxia, who, of course, used to be vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and who had a nexus with Xi going back to their fathers, who were in the same field army during China's civil war.

I mean, that to me... tells us everything we need to know about how unsentimental and ruthless she is when it comes to personal relationships.

I mean, this is how he treats somebody in his inner circle that he's known for decades.

interests.

And what I argue in the piece is that the problem with that is that Xi Jinping is not very sentimental when it comes to personal relationships, right? And we just got evidence of this just in the last couple of days where the party formally purged a general named Zhang Youxia who used to be the top commander of China's military and is somebody with whom Xi Jinping had a relationship going back not just to his childhood, but their fathers had been comrades in arms together back in China's civil war.

and he has been purged and publicly excoriated.

This is how Xi Jinping treats somebody inside his inner circle, never mind the leader of his chief geopolitical rival.

and Singapore's retrenchment rate reached its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2020.

In the region, China's state media Xinhua reported that two senior military officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenlei, were expelled from the Communist Party and the armed forces over what authorities called serious violations of discipline and law.

Zhang was vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, China's top military command body, and was widely regarded as a close ally of President Xi Jinping.

Liu was also a member of the Commission and headed its Joint Staff Department.

and Singapore's retrenchment rate reached its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2020.

In the region, China's state media Xinhua reported that two senior military officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenlei, were expelled from the Communist Party and the armed forces over what authorities called serious violations of discipline and law.

Zhang was vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, China's top military command body, and was widely regarded as a close ally of President Xi Jinping.

Liu was also a member of the Commission and headed its Joint Staff Department.

And finally, China has expelled two senior military officers for serious disciplinary and legal violations.

Zhang Youxia was a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a senior ally of President Xi Jinping, while Liu Zhenli was a commission member and military chief of staff.

State media accuse both men of disloyalty, corruption, abuse of office and dereliction of duty.

It comes days ahead of Presidency's visit to the US for talks with President Donald Trump and weeks before key domestic political meetings.