Chinaupdated 2h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 31 December 2013China’s Communist Party Expels Record 33 Members After Xi Jinping Pushes Party Discipline
“For religious communities, this campaign means submitting their leadership, teaching, and activities to CCP oversight”
“The plenum formally ratified the expulsion of 33 officials from the party”
Photo: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
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Record 33 party members expelled at fifth plenum amid discipline push. The plenum adopted governance-and-discipline measures to tighten internal control.
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Record expulsions at fifth plenum
China’s Communist Party expelled a record 33 members as it concluded its fifth plenum, with the gathering in Beijing marked by “the most empty seats ever seen.” The fifth plenum was attended by 279 Central Committee members, compared with 315 at the fourth plenum in October 2025 and 364 at the third one in July 2024.
Xi Jinping framed the campaign as a fight against corruption and party decay, telling the party leadership that “if corruption is allowed to worsen unchecked, it will ultimately lead to the total collapse of the party and the state.” Zhang Fuhai, from the party’s disciplinary commission, told a press briefing that more than two million individuals have been disciplined for cases related to “pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.”
Military reshuffle and discipline
The party’s communique said 16 of the 33 expelled members were from the military, and the BBC said it was “unclear what specific charges these members face.”
The leaders also elevated Gen. Zhang Shengmin, the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, to the Politburo during the four-day closed-door meeting.
The Central Military Commission was left with only Xi and vice-chair Zhang Shengmin after purges thinned the leadership ranks, and the party’s resolution portrayed the crackdown as “turn the blade inward.”
Kerry Brown, director of King’s College London’s Lau China Institute, said the “main messaging” was that the party must be unified, and he added that for Xi and his colleagues the message was “We are united, we are disciplined, and we are not like them.”
What comes next for rule
The fifth plenum set the 21st Party Congress for the second half of 2027 in Beijing, effectively starting proceedings for China’s tightly choreographed, twice-a-decade top reshuffle. The Plenum seems to be used (to) prepare for Xi to secure another term.
The latest expulsions brought the total number of members removed under Xi’s third term to a record 51, up from 35 and five in his first and second terms respectively, while the party’s anti-corruption watchdog reported 680,000 people disciplined across the party apparatus in the first nine months of this year. The party vowed on Thursday to keep waging the tough, protracted and all-out battle against corruption in the face of “major challenges,” and Joseph Torigian said, “It's necessary to keep trying to fight certain challenges that even Xi Jinping admits never go away.”