As China’s Communist Party wrapped off a significant annual political meeting with the highest number of empty seats ever recorded, a record 33 members were dismissed. There were 279 Central Committee members present at the fifth plenum, compared to 315 at the fourth in October 2025 and 364 at the third in July 2024. Party discipline took center stage during this week’s meeting, in contrast to previous plenums that concentrated on social and development issues or economic reforms.
Since assuming power in 2012, Xi Jinping has made combating corruption a top priority, referring to it as the “biggest threat” to the party. Following a four-day closed-door meeting at a Beijing hotel, a statement was released on Thursday stating that sixteen of the thirty-three individuals removed are from the military. Beyond “serious disciplinary and legal violations,” it’s unclear what precise allegations these members are facing. Under Xi’s anti-corruption effort, such general accusations have become commonplace.
According to Chong Ja Ian, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China, it is now “an effort to consolidate and maintain authority”In this instance, the campaign will go on and grow based more on Xi’s sense of security than any actual corruption problem. The party declared that it will “enforce strict party self-governance, including turning the knife inwards to… curb disorder” and that it had “squarely confronted the grim reality that party leadership had at times weakened or hollowed out” in its statement.
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