PLA graft chief Zhang Shengmin joins the Politburo as the plenum seals Zhang Youxia's expulsion

The Chinese Communist Party's fifth plenum closed in Beijing on 29 October by promoting Central Military Commission vice-chairman Zhang Shengmin to the Politburo and confirming the expulsion from the party of his former colleague Zhang Youxia, once the highest-ranking general in the People's Liberation Army, according to the Liberty Times and Agence France-Presse.

The four-day meeting, which opened on 26 October, approved a commission report on what it called serious violations of discipline and law by 16 military figures. The Liberty Times listed them as Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhenli, Wang Renhua, Liu Qingsong, Huang Ming, Li Qiaoming, Li Wei, Zhang Hongbing, Wang Haijiang, Zhang Lin, Wang Peng, Liu Faqing, Yang Cheng, Zhong Shaojun, Zhao Xiaozhe and Fang Yongxiang. A parallel report from the party's discipline commission covered 18 other officials.

Newtalk said Liu Zhenli is the former chief of staff of the commission's Joint Staff Department. The plenum also confirmed earlier Politburo decisions to strip party membership from those named, among them the former Xinjiang party chief Ma Xingrui and the former head of the party's International Liaison Department, Liu Jianchao, while former financial regulator Li Yunze lost his party posts, the outlet reported.

A two-man commission

Zhang Shengmin, a rocket force general born in 1958, built his career in political work and military discipline inspection and has been the PLA's top anti-corruption official since 2018, according to Newtalk and Macau Business. He was made a commission vice-chairman at the fourth plenum in 2025. Newtalk said he is the first Politburo member added between party congresses since Huang Ju in 1994.

Macau Business reported that the anti-corruption drive has removed five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission, leaving only Xi Jinping and Zhang Shengmin. With his promotion, the Politburo has 22 members, two fewer than when it took office. AFP noted that Zhang Youxia was removed from his military post in August after a graft investigation lasting months.

The plenum did not name anyone to the empty commission seats. It decided that the 21st Party Congress will be held in Beijing in the second half of 2027, the Liberty Times reported.

AFP said this year's plenum had the lowest turnout since Mao Zedong died in 1976, with eight Central Committee seats vacant before it began. Newtalk put attendance at 162 full members and 117 alternates, and the plenum promoted 10 alternates to full membership to fill gaps. AFP also noted that the readout did not describe Xi as the People's Leader, a title that some had speculated could be conferred.

How Taipei reads it

Speaking at a seminar in Taipei on 29 October, Wang Chan-hsi, an associate research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the plenum showed that strict party discipline has become the backbone of Xi's effort to extend his hold on power, the Liberty Times reported.

Hong Yao-nan, director of the Cross-Strait Relations Research Center at Tamkang University, told the same seminar that Beijing's failure to refill the commission does not reflect a lack of candidates. In his view it reflects the system under which the commission chairman holds final responsibility, turning what was meant to be a collective leadership body into one where the chairman alone decides.

Why it matters

The Central Military Commission is the body that would direct any PLA campaign against Taiwan. The plenum outcome means that until the 2027 congress, at the earliest, the body rests with Xi and a single uniformed vice-chairman whose career was built in political work and discipline inspection.