Will Xi’s corruption purges paralyse China’s bureaucracy?

(Edited and refined by Josephine Hong, with the assistance of AI translation.)

The fifth plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded on 29 October. Compared with previous plenums, this session delivered an exceptionally dense barrage of signals and developments. From the number of attendees and the sweeping scale of personnel reshuffles to the far-reaching implications of the newly adopted Decision of the CCP Central Committee on Several Major Issues Related to Advancing Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance, the plenum is poised to be a landmark in CCP history.

A depleted Central Committee

According to the official communiqué released by Xinhua News Agency, a total of 279 Central Committee members, including 162 full members and 117 alternate members, attended the meeting. This represents a drop of nearly 100 members compared with the 376 who comprised the Central Committee when it was formed in 2022. 

Aside from a handful who passed away from illness, the vast majority of absences were because the members had either been formally stripped of their posts for violations of discipline and law, or deemed “missing” from the public eye.

The actual number of cadres purged or involved in corruption scandals exceeded analysts’ estimates, setting a record high for the number of officials disciplined within a single Central Committee term across China’s reform and opening-up era spanning nearly half a century. This underscores the unprecedented ferocity of the party’s internal crackdown over the past four years, exceeding outside expectations.

The fifth plenum also saw the promotion of ten alternate members to full membership, including Shanxi governor Lu Dongliang. Yet this number falls far short of the total purged. Furthermore, five higher-ranking alternate members were bypassed for promotion, highlighting the party’s commitment to “strict governance”.

As foreshadowed during the Politburo meeting in late September, the decision document deliberated at the plenum reviewed the achievements and lessons of the party’s full and rigorous self-governance under Xi Jinping’s leadership. According to the communiqué, the party gave an exceptionally high assessment of its anti-corruption campaign in recent years, affirming it as a “great achievement”. 

It also praised that the Central Committee, with Xi Jinping at its core, had demonstrated “tremendous political courage and a strong sense of responsibility, directly confronting the stark reality of a party leadership that had once been weakened, hollowed out and diluted, alongside lapses in party governance that were lax, superficial and ineffective, as well as alarming internal decay”.

The communiqué said that the Central Committee had turned the blade inwards and used severe measures to restore order, thereby “fundamentally reversing the lax and weak state of party governance, halting unhealthy practices that had persisted for years, eradicating deep-seated chronic malpractices of many years’ standing, and eliminating grave hidden dangers within the party, the state and the military”.

Closing loopholes in party rules

The absence of 97 Central Committee full and alternate members serves as a vivid illustration of the leadership “turning the blade inwards and using severe measures to restore order”, and eliminating “grave hidden dangers”. However, the fifth plenum sought not merely to justify the determination, legitimacy and necessity of the fierce crackdown; it also aimed to lay out a systematic, long-term plan for sustaining full and rigorous party self-governance.

According to the communiqué, the party will treat strengthening party spirit and upholding democratic centralism as the basis for the stricter management of officials. The stated objective is to build a high-calibre cadre team that is “politically steadfast, highly capable, exemplary in conduct and strictly disciplined”. Specific measures include reinforcing both the political and organisational functions of party bodies, ensuring that the Central Committee’s directives are implemented with coordinated, precise and efficient execution at every level.

The communiqué further called for substantive, comprehensive oversight by party committees and leading party groups, driving high-efficiency coordination between internal party supervision and oversight from other institutions. 

It also proposed refining evaluation mechanisms for accountability, stipulating strict punishment for poor governance and severe lapses. This is likely targeting officials who are concerned with avoiding confrontation, whose behaviour General Secretary Xi Jinping criticised at the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) plenary session on 12 January. The aim is to crack down on cadres who turn a blind eye to brewing problems without intervening, allowing infractions to fester unchecked.

In fact, Xi’s remarks at that January CCDI session — calling for “more scientific and effective efforts to confine power to an institutional cage” — laid out the intellectual backdrop and trajectory of the fifth plenum. At the time, Xi criticised that certain party rules were overly broad and lacked operational punch, while poor cohesion between regulations created gaps and loopholes akin to “keeping a cat in a cattle pen”. 

Other party branches saw their regulations idle on paper, with enforcement weakening at each layer of bureaucracy to produce “paper cages trying to hold tigers”. Xi warned that when explicit rules are ignored, unwritten rules will run rampant, and formal rules become mere decoration. He called for unwritten rules to be stripped of their breeding ground, and that supervision over top leaders be enforced without exception.

The inaction dilemma

In the run-up to the fifth plenum, overseas Chinese-language websites speculated about an imminent political upheaval at the very top of the party hierarchy — claims that once again proved unfounded. Official broadcast footage and the communiqué indicate that the core leadership remains firmly entrenched. With power secure, what continues to drive this unrelenting anti-corruption storm: factional consolidation, or an unyielding commitment to fighting corruption and upholding clean governance? China watchers remain divided.

Looking back across more than a decade of party-building, the concept of “full and rigorous self-governance” was first formally articulated during Xi’s inspection tour of Jiangsu in December 2014. The sixth plenum of the 18th Central Committee in 2016 likewise centred on party governance and cemented Xi’s core status. 

Yet when it comes to managing the bureaucracy, the ongoing anti-corruption sweep — particularly the purge in the military — reveals that legacy corruption has yet to be fully eradicated, while newly emerging graft continues to surface. Against this backdrop, the fifth plenum’s resolution to “persevere” in rigorous self-governance serves primarily to signal that the drive is neither a short-term campaign nor a passing phase, but an institutionalised, enduring and normalised fixture of Chinese governance.

At the same time, party disciplinary oversight is expanding from conventional anti-corruption to inspecting performance execution and instilling a correct view of political achievements. This implies that officials who adopt a “lying flat” attitude, shirk their responsibilities or fail to fully implement central directives could face intense pressure and stricter accountability in the future. 

Promulgating the decision document one year ahead of the 21st Party Congress also establishes the vetting benchmarks and criteria for the upcoming leadership transition. Yet, cadres’ lacklustre performance is not necessarily due to laziness. Under an even harsher accountability regime, how can the party prevent its bureaucratic system from retreating into total inaction out of fear of making mistakes? This will likely be the thorny dilemma future Central Committee plenums must resolve.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “中共五中全会定调“从严治党”制度化”.

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