Purges and political uncertainty deepen unease inside China’s ruling elite

The weather turned in Beijing this week with temperatures dropping suddenly by about 10 degrees, although the days are still sunny, the parks are filled with people and the autumn gloom has yet to set in. But there is a familiar tension in the air, with more frequent identity card checks and more pairs of guards from the People’s Armed Police standing at acute angles to one another at subway stations.

This kind of security tightening is often a prelude to a major Communist Party meeting in Beijing and next week sees one of the biggest events in the party’s calendar. This is the fifth plenum of the central committee, possibly the most important meeting of the broader leadership before next year’s party congress.

The party congress takes place every five years, usually in October, and it sees the election of the central committee, about 300 people who form the party leadership. The central committee elects the 24 members of the politburo, who in turn choose the seven-member standing committee, the top leadership led by the party’s general secretary Xi Jinping.

The politburo meets once a month but the central committee comes together in plenary session only about once a year, with each plenum having a specific agenda. The fifth plenum traditionally focuses on party governance and next week’s meeting is likely to see a deepening of Xi’s campaign to improve internal discipline, the most prominent element of which is his anti-corruption drive.

More than a decade into the campaign, it remains intense and relentless, with more than one million party members disciplined last year and a raft of serious, high-profile cases in the last two weeks alone. They include the indictment of a former mayor of Chengdu, the arrest of a former mayor of Chongqing (and his son), the jailing of a former mayor of Wuhan, the prosecution of the former police chief of Heilongjiang and the indictment of a former university president.

In all of these high-profile cases, the charges are connected to bribery and the abuse of public office for personal gain, sometimes involving huge sums. Former Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang was sentenced to 14 years in prison for taking more than 60.5 million renminbi (€8 million) in bribes over two decades.

One point of interest at next week’s meeting will be to see who is missing or has been purged from the central committee after the investigation or expulsion of dozens of its members since 2022. This includes three members of the politburo – two generals in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and a former party secretary in Xinjiang.

The purge of the PLA leadership has been so extensive that of the six generals appointed to the party’s Central Military Commission, which oversees the armed forces, only one remains. The fifth plenum could see some figures named to fill the vacant places.

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Next week’s meeting comes as the party leadership is vetting prospective candidates for the central committee that will be formed at next year’s party congress. Xi has frequently complained about the quality of some party cadres, criticising officials who publicly appear loyal but quietly avoid implementing directives as they build their own cliques.

Xi’s control over the system is such that nobody believes he can be denied a fourth term as general secretary next year if he wants to remain party leader. And there is no sign that he is preparing to leave office, nor is anyone from the broader leadership being obviously groomed as a successor.

But other members of the politburo will retire next year and despite Xi’s dominant position, the party retains the architecture of a collective leadership. Changes within the leadership are likely to be reflected in policy, and generational change could have a more profound impact in China than elsewhere.

The formative experience for Xi’s generation was the Cultural Revolution and the chaos, violence and cruelty it visited on so many, including Xi’s own family. But the rising generation of party cadres now in their fifties grew up under Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up and saw life in China improve dramatically in each decade.

Last August, Xi paid tribute to the late Chinese leader Jiang Zemin on the 100th anniversary of his birth, an event that led the front pages of much of the state media. Xi portrayed the party’s current leadership as a continuation of Jiang’s political project, which promoted private business and wealth creation.

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As they watch the formation of the next party leadership, China’s rich recall the years of lightly regulated wealth creation under Jiang with fondness. And they hope that Xi’s tribute to his predecessor signalled the possible return of some of that spirit.