Xi's disciplinary campaign cuts party plenum attendance to historic low

Party disciplined 983,000 people last year, highest annual total on record

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tightened his grip on the Communist Party through a campaign against corruption and disloyalty that reduced the governing Central Committee this week to its lowest attendance at a policy-setting meeting since the Mao Zedong era, according to The Wall Street Journal. About a quarter of the 376 officials on the committee when its term began four years ago did not attend the elite body’s four-day plenum in Beijing, which ended Thursday. The Journal reported that many of the absentees have been removed from office or placed under investigation in the campaign.

The plenum was attended by 162 full members and 117 nonvoting alternates, according to the communiqué issued after the meeting ended Thursday. They represented about 74% of the Central Committee’s original membership — 205 full members and 171 alternates — at the start of its current term in 2022. That participation rate is the lowest among plenums with publicly disclosed attendance figures since 1968, according to a Wall Street Journal review of attendance data; that year’s plenum, convened during the tumult of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, was attended by about 35% of the committee’s membership. State-television footage of this week’s plenum showed several rows of empty seats in the meeting hall.

Attendees approved a strategic plan for perpetuating Xi’s efforts to impose “full and rigorous party self-governance,” as Beijing describes its high-pressure enforcement of disciplinary rules and demands for absolute commitment to Xi. The party still faces “long-term, complex, and severe” challenges in battling corruption and bureaucratic decay, the Central Committee said in its communiqué, and must do more to cultivate capable and zealous cadres and ensure officials “don’t dare, are unable and have no desire to be corrupt.” The communiqué did not disclose specifics of the strategic plan, though the party has typically released more details in the days after a plenum.

The reduced ranks and somber tone at the plenum reflect how Xi has imposed his authority since taking power in 2012, becoming China’s most dominant leader since Mao, the Journal reported. Since then, he has sidelined rivals and packed the party leadership with loyalists, even ousting some of his own protégés.

The personnel clear-out also sets the stage for a sweeping turnover in China’s ruling establishment, as the party prepares for a pivotal congress about a year from now where Xi is expected to secure a fourth five-year term as party chief and install a new leadership team. The plenum affirmed that the next party congress will take place in the second half of 2027. In recent months, Beijing has announced more than 20 new regional leadership appointments, including provincial party chiefs and governors, potentially positioning these officials for promotion next year; the moves also fueled speculation over whom Xi may elevate into the 20-plus member Politburo and its Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body.

Over the past four years, dozens of full or alternate Central Committee members have been formally placed under investigation, removed from office, or have disappeared from public view, according to a Wall Street Journal review of official disclosures and state-media reports; some of those under investigation have since been expelled from the party. They included three members of the Politburo. This week’s plenum appointed Gen. Zhang Shengmin to fill one of the Politburo vacancies, making him the only military member of the elite body. Zhang, who was promoted to vice chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission last year, is currently the only uniformed officer serving under Xi on the commission, which controls the armed forces.

The plenum promoted 10 alternates to full membership, nearly matching the 11 such promotions approved at a plenum last year, and confirmed the party’s expulsion of 33 officials who were Central Committee members or alternates, including former senior diplomat Liu Jianchao. Since the Communist Party won control of mainland China in 1949, only five Central Committee plenums have promoted 10 or more alternates to full membership, including this year’s conclave, according to party records; three of them took place under Xi.

Xi’s disciplinary enforcement campaign, launched in late 2012, has continued without pause, aimed at keeping officials loyal and on their toes. Party authorities disciplined 983,000 people last year, up roughly 10.6% from 2024 and the highest annual total on record. Beijing has kept up the pressure this year, with the party imposing disciplinary action on some 680,000 people from January to September, including more than 100 officials holding top provincial leadership and ministerial-level roles or higher, according to official data. Party authorities also reported punishing about 131,000 people for offenses related to policy inaction, recklessness or deceit from January to September, an 18.6% increase from the same period last year.

The Journal reported that Xi’s campaign has “instilled a climate of fear across the party,” leaving many officials reluctant to act decisively and instead focused on placating Beijing. At this week’s plenum, the Central Committee discussed Xi’s ideas for strengthening party cohesion and discipline, which include stricter supervision of the party’s 101 million members and what the Journal described as the “ruthless purging” of corrupt and ineffectual officials who impede the leadership’s agenda.

Two Washington-based institutions published recent reports on the limits of Xi’s dominance. “Xi’s dominance should not be mistaken for omnipotence,” the Asia Society Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said in a recent report. “Commanding Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound in Beijing, is easier than controlling 101 million Party members or dictating policy outcomes across a country as vast and complex as China.” “As Xi gears up for his fourth term, he risks becoming even more isolated” as some of his allies retire from the party leadership, Jon Czin and Allie Matthias of the Washington-based Brookings Institution said in a recent report. “Xi will have to replace them with younger men who will likely seek to ingratiate themselves with Xi—in the hopes of replacing him one day,” Czin and Matthias wrote. “Xi can replace the men but not the trust. And in a conspiratorial system like China’s, trust is the rarest political commodity.” Some China politics watchers expect more political intrigue in the months ahead as officials jockey for promotions.