China announced on Saturday that Zhang Youxia, second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, and another senior officer, Liu Zhenli, were under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law.

The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to the biggest events in global sport. Sign up here.


"We will continue to closely monitor abnormal changes among the top levels of China's party, government, and military leadership. The military's position is based on the fact that China has never abandoned the use of force against Taiwan," Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo told reporters at parliament.

Zhang has long been seen as Xi's closest military ally, and is one of the few senior Chinese officers with combat experience, having taken part in the 1979 border conflict with Vietnam.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, sends warplanes and warships into the skies and waters around the island on an almost daily basis, in what Taipei views as a harassment campaign to get the government to accept Beijing's sovereignty claims.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue


Koo said what the ministry was looking at is not any "single leadership reshuffle that would be enough to draw conclusions".


[1/3]Chinese Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia arrives for a group photo session before the opening ceremony of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium in Qingdao, Shandong province, China April 22, 2024. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab


Taiwan will use a range of joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance methods, as well as intelligence-sharing, to "grasp" China's possible intentions, he added.

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and held its latest round of war games around the island late last month. Taiwan's government says only the island's people can decide their future.