Ling Ling Wei's weekend @The Wall Street Journal exclusive on Xi's military purge reads like a CCP info op. It's part of a multi-year problem at WSJ, and dozens of China-watchers are taking notice. Here are 20 weekend reactions to the WSJ reporting that range from skepticism to scathing

What’s most striking is that such a serious allegation never appeared among the 5 crimes listed by PLA Daily. The most plausible explanation is that this was a case of high-level information warfare: feeding false intel to foreign media to generate pressure on Zhang’s allies,

The Wall Street Journal story reads more like disinformation than genuine reporting. The alleged details do not withstand basic scrutiny. The charge itself fits a familiar political pattern in China: a catch-all accusation—“colluding with foreign forces” (里通外国)—often used against those who have lost an internal power struggle.

我想告訴读者诸君，《华尔街日报》貌似扮演海外最大听床师的角色，实际上是沦为大外宣顶级喉舌，拿到的喂料由官方统一口徑，借西方主流媒体给张又侠泼粪栽赃，形成强大的海外舆论压力，从而让党政军大员接受对张又侠的定罪，只有这样才能稳定党心军心，才能解释抓捕张又侠的合法性和紧返性。这种指控在逻辑上经不起任何推敲，试问美国拿什么来交换张又侠的重要情报？张又侠看得上几千万美元抑或几亿美元吗？何况美国情报部门根本拿不出这笔钱。 I want to tell readers that The Wall Street Journal appears to be playing the role of the largest overseas rumor mill, but in reality it has degenerated into a top-tier mouthpiece of the regime’s external propaganda. The “information” it receives is fed through a unified official line, using Western mainstream media to smear and frame Zhang Youxia, thereby creating massive international public-opinion pressure. The goal is to force senior Party, government, and military officials to accept a guilty verdict against Zhang Youxia. Only in this way, they claim, can Party unity and military morale be stabilized, and only in this way can the legality and urgency of Zhang Youxia’s arrest be justified. Such accusations collapse under even the slightest logical scrutiny. One must ask: what could the United States possibly offer in exchange for Zhang Youxia’s critical intelligence? Would Zhang Youxia be tempted by tens of millions—or even hundreds of millions—of dollars? Moreover, U.S. intelligence agencies simply do not have the ability to produce such a sum in the first place.

分析深刻 到位，完全赞同。 张又侠泄密之说完全站不住脚，在他这个位置不缺钱，数千万美元不能买动他，而且在这个位置上被中国有关部门盯得很近，根本没可能、也不会犯这样的低级错误。 中共此次之所以速办速公布就是担心墙内军心民心不稳，这种做法也可以说是先下手为强，华尔街日报的报道没有说服力，应该也是中共应对海外舆论的一招。

The WSJ and their CCP Info desk is feeding the US CCP psyops and not news

And there it is, exactly as predicted. This story is totally fabricated. The Wall Street Journal does not have super secret sources in Beijing. No one does. What it has are Communist Party mouthpieces feeding it a fake narrative, dressed up as “highly confidential” leaks.

Wow. Massive volume of salt required as the claims originate from the CCP. But if true, flipping Zhang Youxia to a HUMINT source would undoubtedly be one of the greatest U.S. intelligence triumphs ever.

The CIA recruited Xi's top general to divulge China's most sensitive secrets? The same CIA that: - Got all of its spies in China killed 15 years ago? - For years dithered about whether the engineered coronavirus originated from the PLA-tied coronavirus engineering lab in Wuhan? - Suppressed intel pointing to Chinese interference in the 2020 election? You don't have to be a sophisticated observer of Chinese politics to detect that this is a lie, you just need a layman's understanding of the incompetence of the CIA.

I don’t know anything about Xi Jinping’s actual internal thought process here (& doubt the WSJ does either) but this *sounds* like made up CCP schlock aimed at justifying Xi’s desire to purge a threat to his grip on power or a guy who wasn’t on board with Xi’s military ambitions

This is a good point. The CCP is incredibly secretive and also engages in aggressive disinformation campaigns. Smart money is the nuclear weapons story is part of a disinformation campaign.

This is CCP propaganda.

This is so on brand for @The Wall Street Journal China team.. - just so on brand…

I'm a little skeptical of the claim in this @The Wall Street Journal piece that top PLA general Zhang Youxia "leaked core technical data on China's nuclear weapons to the U.S." I could be wrong and the "people familiar with a high-level briefing" could be right, but here are some questions and thoughts: 1. How would Zhang even do this? He would have to get these secrets from the China National Nuclear Corporation and transmit/hand them to an agent. But his communications are monitored and he rarely (if ever?) meets anyone unaccompanied. Would require a pretty vast conspiracy to go undetected for a long time. And for battle-hardened general to betray everything that gave his life meaning for last few decades. Possible, but very difficult. Unbelievable work by U.S. intelligence agencies, if true. (To be clear, I think the journalists believed their source in Beijing was telling the truth, what I'm curious about is whether the source actually knew the full extent of the truth.) 2. Some suggestions out there that this story is made credible by reports in 2023 that a Russian deputy defense minister told Xi that former foreign minister Qin Gang helped pass nuclear secrets to the West. Back then I found these reports highly questionable: how would Qin get anywhere close to nuclear secrets, given MOFA and the PLA are so stovepiped? And if this were true and known by Beijing, surely Qin would be purged rather than allowed to just resign from the Central Committee? Moreover, if I were Russian and had the info, I would keep it and use it to recruit Qin as a source. 3. Perhaps the nuclear accusations really were made at a briefing on Saturday! As the piece notes, internal accounts are not always true, and perhaps the really very incredible nature of purging Zhang meant that Beijing felt it needed to come up with the most serious story possible to justify his detention, even for serious but less sensational corruption and disloyalty. Maybe it's a justification. It would be a little extreme, even for Xi, but I think this is more believable. 4. A somewhat more plausible claim in the story is that Zhang accepted huge bribes to help Li Shangfu get promoted to the CMC in 2022. Still, this would require a shocking level of ignorance or bravado from both Zhang and Li given how politics has changed since 2012. It sounds exactly like so many of the pre-Xi corruption cases. I believe it's most likely that Zhang got caught up in the corruption scandals that have rocked the procurement bureaucracy over the last few years and which took down Li. His political sin would be corruption, covering for others in a corrupt conspiracy (already political-clique-type behavior), and betraying Xi's loyalty and trust by not implementing his vision for a cleaner and more capable fighting force. 5. The rest of the story is good! But the most scandalous details are consistent with rumors flying around financial circles in Beijing. These folks could be right, but they could just be spreading great stories. Not sure what, if anything, military/political elites are saying... I welcome rebuttals to my doubts! I am am avid reader of both journalists who wrote this story, I'm just sharing these thoughts because studying Chinese elite politics is really difficult and I believe that debate helps us to get closer to confidence about the truth.

今天《华尔街日报》魏玲玲关于张又侠“向美泄露核武机密”的独家报道，将这位红二代上将的落马推向了又一个高潮。我质疑这个消息的真实性。我的依据是，这个罪名与官方通报的力度不匹配。还有一个可疑的地方是，作为中央军委的主管，张又侠掌握全军最核心、最绝密的信息包括核反击指令流程等，远远超过核工业集团公司顾军所知道的机密，他用不着向顾军去要。即便要泄密，也不可能让顾军知道吧。倘若真涉及“核机密外泄”这种亡党亡国的特大事故，中共的处置一定会类似林彪913 时的做法。可目前显然没有采用这个处理方式。

“I was like, ‘This story is so make-believe.’ But then she goes, ‘And the detectives won’t sleep in the castle because the dragons might still be loyal,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Case closed.’”

华尔街日报说张又侠落马和他向美国泄露核机密有关。这个说法细想起来不合常理。因为泄露国家机密这是可以放在台面的刑事罪名，远比“践踏破坏军委主席负责制”这种政治定性更有说服力。如果属实，那么官方通报中是没有任何必要掩饰这个罪名的——反而是可以摆脱权力内斗的嫌疑。退一步说，张又侠这种位极人臣的人，能被美国策反的概率极低，就算泄密，他掌握的重大机密应该多了去，要泄露的话，台海战略部署恐怕核机密更有价值。总之华盛顿邮报这个说法存疑。

我可以给大家讲个常识： 外媒一般会有很多source，可大部分可靠性都不高，需反复crosscheck。 张又侠这样周六拿下，周日就出报道，还包含“泄密核武器指控”的爆料，这个sourcre极端可靠且重要。 现在风声这么紧，还愿意传“小范围传达”高敏感信息，这种source一般都是奉旨泄密。

In case you're wondering what Chinese intel wants America to think about their recent purges, @The Wall Street Journal's Ling Ling Wei is on the job to launder CCP propaganda into the U.S. media ecosystem. A vast array of anonymous sources doing yeoman's work per usual https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-top-general-accused-of-giving-nuclear-secrets-to-u-s-b8f59dae…?