On October 26-29, 2026, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held the fifth plenary session of its current (20th) Central Committee, selected in 2022. The plenum’s focus on party self-governance marked a departure from the usual pattern of these annual sessions, which have normally focused on party appointments at the first plenum, state appointments at the second, economic reforms at the third, party discipline at the fourth, and the next five-year plan at the fifth, although this sequence is not fixed. As the 21st CCP National Congress, scheduled for the second half of 2027, is expected to bring major personnel changes and confirm President Xi Jinping for a fourth five-year term as general secretary, we approached several analysts to share their insights on the significance of the Fifth Plenum, both in terms of the party’s internal priorities and the broader external environment.
Personnel uncertainty and the limits of party control
Dominika Remžová, CEIAS Research Fellow
As Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive and emphasis on the party’s “self-revolution” continue to evolve, the campaign now targets officials not only for perceived disloyalty, but also for non-compliance and inaction in implementing the central leadership’s policies.
As a Xinhua communiqué confirmed, 162 full and 117 alternate members attended the plenum, compared with the original 205 full and 171 alternate members at the start of the current Committee. This marked the lowest attendance rate in the post-Mao era, down from last year’s plenum, which saw 168 full and 147 alternate members in attendance. It also reflects the record number of expulsions, investigations, and disappearances under Xi Jinping, which have increased markedly since 2023, particularly among People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers. Of the 44 military officers selected as full members of the Central Committee in 2022, only Zhang Shengmin, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and Dong Jun, minister of national defense, had not been purged ahead of this year’s meeting.
Zhang was the only CMC member besides Xi to remain from the original seven-member commission. The five vacant seats remained unfilled, suggesting continued distrust of the military leadership and ongoing personnel adjustments ahead of next year’s party congress, while raising further doubts about the likelihood of a major Taiwan Strait contingency in the near term. Zhang Shengmin, who served as the main enforcer of the PLA’s anti-corruption purges, was promoted to the Politburo, the party’s central decision-making body. The communiqué also confirmed the expulsions of several high-ranking officials, including two PLA generals and CMC members Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli.
Ten alternate members were promoted to full membership, four of whom belong to the party’s seventh generation (i.e., cadres born between 1970 and 1979), fueling speculation that a potential Xi successor may come from this generation. Two can trace their rise to power to previous positions in state-owned enterprises: Lu Dongliang (Aluminum Corporation of China) and Liu Jie (Xiangtan Iron and Steel Group). The other two have banking backgrounds: Liu Jun (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) and Liu Qiang (the Bank of China).
The seventh generation’s importance was further underscored by changes to the personnel promotion process. Under the revised approach, officials will be judged on crisis-management capabilities, problem-solving skills, and track records, rather than relying primarily on conventional benchmarks such as age and academic credentials. The changes also call for more rigorous background checks and vetting procedures ahead of future promotions. This aligns with Xi’s growing criticism of “two-faced” officials who prioritize their own or factional interests, immediate gains, and career advancement at the expense of long-term collective interests. Such behavior includes investing in showcase projects such as EV and battery plants that can exacerbate (rather than resolve) domestic economic problems.
Although party documents acknowledge the link between self-governance and economic development, implementing the latter depends heavily on increasingly cash-strapped local governments. Under the current political system, officials are likely to continue being rewarded for appearing compliant rather than for pursuing structural reforms. In this context, fiscal reform that could address the mismatch between local governments’ revenue-generating capacity and expenditure obligations is unlikely, not least because of the leadership’s centralization mandate.
Preparing the Party for the new Long March
Filip Šebok, Head of Prague Office and Research Fellow at CEIAS
The Fifth Plenum further confirmed what has been clear for some time: the focus on internal party discipline and anti-corruption is not just a campaign, but a structural element of Chinese governance under Xi Jinping. The record number of purges shows that, if anything, the effort to instill discipline (read as loyalty) in the Party is intensifying. While one could read the political demise of party officials as a testament to the power of the “party center” (Xi Jinping) to eliminate obstacles to implementing his agenda, it instead reveals underlying problems.
Xi has been in power for 14 years now. This is no longer about eliminating the vestiges of the previous system his predecessors put in place. High-level officials deposed under Xi have risen through the ranks under his watch and should have been expected to adhere to his political agenda and discipline requirements. While no one should expect cracks to emerge in Xi’s authority any time soon, all signs point to a serious lack of trust within the party leadership. Nowhere is the problem more apparent than in the PLA, where the leadership has purged almost the entire command over the past three years.
As China enters a difficult period marked by both the structural problems of its economic model and an increasingly competitive international environment, Beijing’s leadership faces serious challenges. As Xi recently outlined in his commemoration of the Communist Party’s historic retreat 90 years ago, China must “withstand major tests of high winds and choppy waters and even perilous storms” on its “new Long March.” Xi is preparing the country for a difficult period, in which we can expect even more emphasis on all-encompassing security and boosting the resilience of the Chinese economy and society. For now, Xi does not seem comfortable passing the baton to another generation to deal with these challenges at the next Party Congress in 2027.
Xi tackles implementation failures with his anti-corruption drive
Alexander Davey, Analyst at MERICS
Poor implementation plagues the party, and the adopted resolution on “Certain Major Issues concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance” aims to address this through stricter party rule. The party has limited ways to oversee its officials and their actions, and this plenum calls for renewing and improving regulations, mechanisms, and ideology within the party to prevent deviant behavior and improve policy implementation.
This matters to Xi and the party because corruption and failure to deliver on Xi’s agenda challenge the party’s ability to govern and resist future corruption. According to the plenum’s communiqué, the party faces long-term, complex, and severe tests and risks. The party describes these challenges with two idioms borrowed from its predecessor’s tenure: the “four tests” (四大考验) and the “four dangers” (四种危险). The four tests are: avoiding the abuses of power that come with long-term rule; managing economic and institutional reform without destabilizing politics; managing market forces, competing interests, inequality, and corruption without compromising political principles; and withstanding international competition, geopolitical tension, globalization, and external ideological pressure. If the party fails to withstand these four tests, it can face four major risks. These include ideological complacency and loss of motivation, insufficient governing capacity, disconnection from the people, and the risk of inaction and corruption. These phrasings show the Sisyphean nature of the party’s corruption and implementation problem and that even after 14 years of Xi’s anti-corruption policies, the devastating consequences of failing to combat it remain ever present.
Tackling corruption is central to self-governance. China is a Leninist one-party system without oversight from outside the party. There is no separation of powers that would allow, for example, civil society or the media to act as watchdogs and draw attention to abuses and the inadequate implementation of political directives, now understood as a form of corruption. All of this has to happen within the party itself. Therefore, the party can do only one thing: “make officials afraid to be corrupt, have no opportunity to be corrupt and have no desire to be corrupt.” Mentioned three times in the communiqué, this internal-checks-system phrasing is a three-pronged approach that seeks to manage the cause and symptoms of officials’ ever-emerging damaging practices that stymie policy implementation. It aims to deter officials from being corrupt through the prospect of severe consequences, prevent officials from being able to be corrupt through binding their actions with rules and institutions, and make the mindset of officials aligned with the party in a way where they see the existence of rules and regulations as something to protect rather than restrict them.
Coming a year after the fourth plenum set the priorities for China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, the fifth plenum turns attention to a more persistent challenge for Xi Jinping: ensuring the party-state can deliver on them. The plan is intended to consolidate reforms already underway, integrating fragmented institutions and policies into more coherent national systems. Yet Xi continues to face a persistent principal-agent problem: officials throughout the party-state hierarchy fail to implement central directives consistently or assume responsibility for delivering results. Inspections are set to play a greater role in party and state oversight and will be wielded as a “sharp sword” to qualitatively check on-the-ground implementation and overcome the implementation failures that threaten this reform agenda.
The stakes extend well beyond China. Unless these reforms succeed in strengthening its attempt to build a single domestic market and stimulating domestic demand, China risks perpetuating its two-speed economy and relying on exports to absorb industrial output that domestic consumption cannot sustain. This would intensify pressure on European manufacturers as Chinese producers continue to seek markets abroad, potentially accelerating Europe’s industrial decline.
