China’s Communist Party opened its fifth plenum Monday in Beijing to discuss tighter oversight of officials, with vacancies and investigations adding stakes ahead of the 2027 congress, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
State media put attendance at about 300 Central Committee members and said the agenda includes stronger discipline, anti-corruption measures and efforts to improve officials’ performance and loyalty.
The Politburo agreed Sept. 21 to circulate a draft decision on Party self-governance. Its announcement said the draft would assess past governance, identify pressures in Party building and set priorities for future work, but did not publish the text or specify proposed rule changes. The move was covered in EconoTimes’ earlier account of the planned Party self-governance review.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, 73, has pursued an anti-corruption campaign for 14 years, a drive that AFP said has removed thousands of officials, including dozens of Central Committee members. The agency also reported that Xi has criticized officials he sees as failing to carry out central orders. Analysts told AFP that tighter supervision and rules are intended to improve officials’ performance and loyalty.
Eight Central Committee seats are vacant, and 15 members are under investigation and face possible replacement, AFP reported. The agency expects attendance to be lower than at any plenum since Mao Zedong died in 1976.
AFP reported the campaign has removed five members from the seven-member Central Military Commission (CMC), the party body responsible for the armed forces. AFP cited an Asia Society Policy Institute tally showing that just two of the 44 military members named to the Central Committee in 2022 had not been purged or gone missing. The plenum could appoint CMC replacements or leave vacancies until the 2027 congress; AFP also reported Xi could restructure the party’s control of the military.
The gathering comes amid weak domestic spending, prolonged problems in the property sector and difficult U.S. ties, AFP reported. The agency said Xi is almost certain to secure a fourth term at next year’s congress, which is also expected to bring a leadership reshuffle. AFP said officials are due to issue a brief account of the meeting’s results once proceedings end Thursday.
