China opens a party plenum as a think tank finds 42 of 44 PLA Central Committee members purged or missing

Chinese leader Xi Jinping opened the Communist Party's fifth plenum in Beijing on Monday, 26 October, after years of purges that have hollowed out the military's share of the party's Central Committee. An Agence France-Presse report carried by RFI, citing the Asia Society Policy Institute, said only two of the 44 military officers appointed to the committee in 2022 have not been purged or gone missing.

State news agency Xinhua reported that Xi opened the session by presenting a draft decision on what the party calls full and rigorous self-governance. That is the official account of a closed meeting. AFP said roughly 300 Central Committee members are attending and that few details are expected until the plenum ends on Thursday, when a summary is due.

The Central Military Commission, the party body that commands the People's Liberation Army, normally has seven members. The Guardian reported that it has been reduced to two, Xi and Zhang Shengmin, the commission's head of discipline, and AFP said five of its seven members have been toppled. Zhang Youxia, who had been the top-ranking general below Xi, was placed under investigation in January and expelled from the party last month after being removed from the commission, according to the Guardian.

The United Daily News, citing a tally by Hong Kong's Ming Pao, reported that 22 full members of the Central Committee had fallen or lost their legislative seats in the past year, and that the military accounted for 14 of them. In late August, Zhang Youxia was stripped of his National People's Congress seat along with Liu Zhenli, former chief of the commission's Joint Staff Department, Ju Qiansheng, former commander of the Strategic Support Force, and Zhong Shaojun, former head of the commission's General Office. Zhang and Liu were expelled from the party in late September, a step the plenum is expected to endorse.

The same report listed earlier removals from the committee, including former defence minister Li Shangfu and former commission vice-chairman He Weidong. It said Wang Kangping, a former commander of the Joint Logistic Support Force, was among six alternate members who had fallen. Ming Pao expected about 45 people to be removed from the committee at this meeting. AFP gave a narrower count, saying eight seats were already vacant and 15 more members were under investigation and at risk of being replaced.

Attendance is expected to be the lowest since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, AFP said. The United Daily News reported that the Asia Society forecast 291 attendees in a recent report, a turnout of 77.4 percent.

The plenum is the last major gathering before the 21st Party Congress next year, at which Xi is widely expected to secure a fourth term as party leader, the Guardian and AFP reported. AFP said the meeting could name new members to the military commission, leave the posts empty until the congress, or even change how the party controls the armed forces.

Analysts interviewed by the Guardian differed on what drives the campaign. Kerry Brown of King's College London said that in Xi's view corruption and political disloyalty are largely the same thing. Neil Thomas of the Asia Society said Xi had turned anti-corruption into a permanent method of rule with no obvious point at which the job can be declared done.