China Expels Record Number of Officials in Xi Jinping’s Crackdown
China expels a record 33 officials from the CCP amid Xi Jinping's intensified purges, signaling a harsher stance on internal discipline.
POLICY WIRE — Beijing, China — The fifth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded this week with a record 33 high-ranking officials expelled from the party, a stark symbol of President Xi Jinping’s ongoing purge.
A total of 279 of the full and alternate members of the Central Committee attended the gathering, compared to the 376 originally named members in 2022. This marks the highest number of absentees in the plenum’s modern history, many due to purges.
Notable expulsions include Zhang Youxia, the former second-in-command to Xi in the military hierarchy, and Ma Xingrui, the former party secretary for Xinjiang. The reasons for other absences remain unclear.
Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at the Asia Society, noted that the empty seats underscore the plenum’s emphasis on Xi’s vision of strict internal discipline. Since taking office in 2012, Xi has intensified his anti-corruption campaign, targeting officials at the highest levels of the party and military.
Xi has repeatedly emphasized the need to uproot “sick trees” and framed the fight against corruption as a never-ending journey. This campaign has significantly reduced the ranks of the Central Military Commission, which now has only two members left: Xi himself and the military’s anti-graft tsar, Zhang Shengmin.
Zhang was promoted to the Politburo this week, the highest ruling body in the party, making him the only military member of the senior leadership.
The plenum also laid the groundwork for the 21st Party Congress, scheduled for the second half of 2027, where Xi is expected to secure a fourth term as party leader. The recent purges, however, have left few suitable candidates for promotion, raising questions about the future of party governance.
Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)
