Chinese Communist Party Plenum Expels 33 Officials, Sets 2027 Congress

A Chinese Communist Party meeting concluded in Beijing this week with a record number of senior officials expelled and a historically high rate of members absent from the proceedings.

The gathering, known as the fifth plenum of the Central Committee, expelled 33 officials from the party. Those expelled included former Politburo members Ma Xingrui and Zhang Youxia, former senior diplomat Liu Jianchao, and former industry minister Jin Zhuanglong. The removal of Ma and Zhang brought the number of sitting Politburo members ousted during the current term to three, a figure the party has not reached since 1980.

Attendance at the closed-door meeting was 279 members, drawn from a cohort of 376 full and alternate members named in 2022. According to a summary of the proceedings released by the official Xinhua news agency, this left 25.8 percent of the original members absent. The party attributed many of the absences to ongoing purges. The meeting also formally scheduled the 21st Party Congress for the second half of 2027 in Beijing.

The Central Military Commission, which functions as the supreme military command, has also seen significant personnel changes. Five of the seven members appointed during the 2022 reshuffle have been purged, leaving President Xi Jinping and vice-chair Zhang Shengmin in office. Zhang was elevated to the Politburo during this week's meeting.

President Xi launched a broad corruption and discipline crackdown after taking power in 2012. At the time, he told the party leadership that unchecked corruption would lead to the total collapse of the party and the state. The campaign has resulted in the removal of hundreds of top officials, including former allies. The communique issued Thursday stated that the party had curbed misconduct and reversed laxity in discipline through revolutionary tempering.

The party's messaging emphasized unity. A statement from King's College London's Lau China Institute director, Kerry Brown, contrasted this with the political situation in the United States. Brown said the message for Xi and his colleagues is, "We are united, we are disciplined, and we are not like them." Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute, said the campaign is "less about purging elite rivals, more about building a disciplined system that can sustain Xi's political priorities across leadership cycles."

The plenum's communique called for improving the training and selection of young cadres. State media commentaries published by People's Daily and Xinhua in recent days have called for the nation to unite around Xi Jinping. Analysts expect Xi to secure another five-year term at the party's helm next autumn, though the party has offered no indication of a change in his role.