China's ruling Communist Party will gather some 300 of its highest-ranking members in Beijing next week to discuss tightening discipline among its ranks, Reuters reported — a conclave analysts say could be the last major party gathering before its 2027 leadership reshuffle.
Source: Reuters via Devdiscourse
The Central Committee will convene in the closed-door meeting from Monday to Thursday — the fifth plenum since the current cohort was formed in 2022. The officials will deliberate "issues concerning the sustained advancement of full and rigorous party self-governance", the party has said, as President Xi Jinping steps up an internal discipline campaign he introduced in 2014.
The conclave is set to ratify the expulsions of two members of the elite Politburo, Zhang Youxia and Ma Xingrui, over charges including corruption and disloyalty, Reuters reported. Zhang was formerly the PLA's top general and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission; Ma is the former Xinjiang party secretary, the Asia Society Policy Institute noted.
Source: Asia Society Policy Institute
A thinned leadership body
"Three of the 24 Politburo members elected in 2022 are gone, the most removed from a sitting Politburo in one term since 1980", said Jean Christopher Mittelstaedt of the University of Zurich, as well as five out of the original seven members of the Central Military Commission, the country's supreme military command body.
The New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute estimates only 77.4% of the original 2022 cohort would be in a position to attend next week's proceedings, meaning nearly a quarter of the leadership body has been removed in the party's disciplinary drive. The institute also recorded investigations into 71 senior civilian and military leaders in the first nine months of 2026.
Source: Asia Society Policy Institute
Analysts do not expect major personnel moves or any indication of a succession plan at the four-day conclave. "This plenum is probably less about deciding individual promotions, more about signalling the system-wide changes Xi wants ahead of a competitive 2027 Party Congress", said Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser on China at London's Tony Blair Institute, quoted by Reuters. Experts widely expect Xi to hold onto the party's top job for a fourth term at next year's 21st Party Congress.
Millions of people within China's bureaucracy have been investigated to varying degrees under Xi's anti-corruption campaign, which has purged hundreds of senior officials and top generals — even the president's one-time allies, Reuters reported. Critics argue the purges, particularly in the armed forces, are destabilising; the party has portrayed the campaign as necessary and regenerative.