Beijing plenum: Xi puts party discipline centre stage
About 300 Central Committee members meet behind closed doors for four days. With 15 under investigation, turnout is expected to be the lowest since Mao's death.
Symbolic image · Photo: N509FZ / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
The fifth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee opened in Beijing on Monday. About 300 Central Committee members are meeting behind closed doors for four days. According to Xinhua, they are discussing a draft decision on advancing "full and rigorous party self-governance" – discipline, loyalty and a deeper anti-corruption drive.
Eight Central Committee seats are vacant and 15 members are under investigation and could be replaced. The plenum is therefore expected to have the lowest turnout since Mao Zedong's death in 1976. New appointments to the Central Military Commission are also possible; five of its seven members have been toppled.
Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign has run for 14 years and swept up thousands of officials. Xi is widely expected to secure a fourth five-year term as party leader about a year after the plenum.