BEIJING -- A Chinese Communist Party conclave on toughening internal discipline this week formally expelled a record number of senior officials and logged the highest absence rate in its modern history as purges thinned its leadership ranks. The gathering, the party’s fifth plenum since the current leadership cohort was formed in 2022, also set the 21st Party Congress for the second half of 2027 in Beijing, effectively starting proceedings for China’s tightly choreographed, twice-a-decade top reshuffle, when President Xi Jinping is expected to extend his rule for another five-year term. The closed-door meeting of the party’s Central Committee, the largest of its top decision-making bodies, was marked by the highest rate of absences in the post-Mao era, underscoring the scale of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign and wider political shake-up. In total, 279 full and alternate members of the leadership body attended the gathering this week, compared with the 376 originally named in 2022, a summary of the proceedings dispatched by the official Xinhua news agency showed. This means more than a quarter, or 25.8%, of the original cohort was absent, many of them due to purges. Despite the record churn, the party portrayed itself as stronger than ever, hailing achievements it said were worthy of being “recorded forever in the history books of building Marxist political parties.” “The main messaging for the party to its domestic and external audiences is that it must be unified,” said Kerry Brown, director of King’s College London’s Lau China Institute. “The US will be emerging from the midterms, where the strong likelihood is yet more division and conflict,” and for Xi and his colleagues, Brown said, “the message will be: We are united, we are disciplined, and we are not like them.” A matter of survival Days after ascending to power in 2012, Xi told the party leadership that “if corruption is allowed to worsen unchecked, it will ultimately lead to the total collapse of the party and the state.” He then initiated a sweeping corruption and discipline crackdown with an intensity unseen since the Mao era that has ensnared millions within China’s vast bureaucracy and has seen hundreds of top officials purged, including one-time allies and those once thought untouchable. Xi called on the party, together with the military, to “turn the blade inward,” unleash a revolution on itself and eradicate “viruses” that corrode its health. Thursday’s communique argued Xi’s consolidated authority had enabled the party to curb long-unchecked misconduct, resolve entrenched institutional failings, eliminate serious hidden dangers within the party, state and military, and reverse the laxity of party discipline, making it stronger through “revolutionary tempering.” The Central Military Commission — the supreme military command — has been nearly eviscerated, with five of the seven members appointed in the 2022 reshuffle purged, leaving only Xi and vice-chair Zhang Shengmin, a discipline enforcer rather than an operational commander, in office. Zhang was unexpectedly elevated to the elite Politburo this week. Although CMC vice-chairs have traditionally held Politburo seats, the party has not added a member to the top body at a midterm plenum since 1994. The plenum formally ratified the expulsion of 33 officials from the party, including former Politburo members Ma Xingrui and Zhang Youxia, bringing the number of sitting Politburo members ousted during the current term to three, the highest since 1980. Former senior diplomat Liu Jianchao and former industry minister Jin Zhuanglong were also among those ousted. Xi’s public remarks suggest he regards the self-cleansing campaign as the party’s only safeguard against decay, essential for ensuring its survival and ability to rule indefinitely. Relentless self-discipline and periodic “self-revolution” for Xi offer the party a means of escaping the dynastic cycle of rise, decline and fall. Xi “seems willing to tolerate significant short-term disruption as an investment in the party’s long-term resilience,” said Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser on China at London’s Tony Blair Institute. “It’s less about purging elite rivals, more about building a disciplined system that can sustain Xi’s political priorities across leadership cycles,” she added. The party’s dilemma After more than a decade, the campaign shows no sign of ending, with the party vowing on Thursday to keep waging the tough, protracted and all-out battle against corruption in the face of new problems and “major challenges.” There are inherent dilemmas to party governance, said Joseph Torigian, an expert in Chinese politics at American University. “It’s necessary to keep trying to fight certain challenges that even Xi Jinping admits never go away.” “People are always vulnerable to the sugar-coated bullets of bourgeois imperialism, so you need to continuously remind them why a sense of mission and zeal is imperative to the party’s mission.” With few external checks on its power, the party appears reliant on campaign-style internal discipline drives to restrain the officials through whom it exercises its immense authority. And “you need to keep having party plenums on ‘party building,’” Torigian added. Leadership reshuffle While some have speculated on a possible recalibration of Xi’s role, analysts widely expect him to secure five more years at the party’s helm next autumn. State media have offered no hint of a loosening grip on power. Commentaries published by the party-run People’s Daily and Xinhua in recent days have called on the party and the nation to “unite even tighter” around Xi and further uphold his status as the party’s core. The messaging casts Xi’s consolidated authority as the most fundamental guarantee of political stability, policy continuity and China’s drive toward national rejuvenation. “The Party is clearly going through a generational overhaul,” said King’s College London’s Brown. “But the key challenge, and the greatest unknown, is to what extent the old guard around Xi will be willing, and able, to let younger leaders assume greater power.” The party should “improve the quality of training and selecting outstanding young cadres,” the plenum communique said. Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Ros Russell and Hugh Lawson, Reuters
