Mass disciplinary action confirmed at 5th plenary session

21st Party Congress set for second half of next year

Zhang Youxia, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party. The party confirmed Zhang's expulsion at the 20th Central Committee's 5th plenary session on Thursday. [AP]
Zhang Youxia, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party. The party confirmed Zhang's expulsion at the 20th Central Committee's 5th plenary session on Thursday. [AP]

China's ruling Communist Party has confirmed the expulsion of 33 senior military, party and government officials — including former Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia — and pledged to tighten oversight of party cadres ahead of next year's congress, where Xi Jinping's bid for a fourth term is expected to be decided.

The decisions were made Thursday at the 5th plenary session of the 20th Central Committee — known as the Fifth Plenum — which concluded in Beijing, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The plenum reviewed and approved inspection reports submitted by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Central Military Commission on "serious violations of discipline and law," formally confirming disciplinary measures that had previously been handed down.

Among the senior military figures stripped of party membership were Zhang Youxia, former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission; Liu Zhenli, former chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission; Wang Renhua, secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Central Military Commission; Liu Qingsong, former political commissar of the Eastern Theater Command; Huang Ming, former commander of the Northern Theater Command; and Li Chaoming, former commander of the ground forces.

Senior party and government officials expelled included Liu Jianchao, former head of the International Department of the Central Committee; Ma Xingrui, former party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; Lan Tianli, former chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; Wang Lixia, former chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region; Jin Zhuangrong, former minister of industry and information technology; and Yi Huiman, former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Li Yunze, former director of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, was confirmed to have had his intraparty positions removed.

The plenum also elected Zhang Shengmin, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, as an additional member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

The session adopted a Central Committee resolution on advancing what the party calls "comprehensively strict party governance" — a campaign to strengthen control and supervision over party cadres.

According to the communique, the party will reinforce the centralized and unified leadership of the party center and strictly regulate the education, selection, appointment, management and oversight of cadres. The party also plans to improve its supervision systems for both the party and the state.

The 21st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, at which Xi's potential fourth term and the composition of the next top leadership will be decided, is scheduled to be held in Beijing in the second half of next year.

The party described the upcoming congress in its communique as "a major event in the political life of the party and the state, held at a critical juncture in the basic realization of socialist modernization."

Held every five years, the National Congress is the party's highest decision-making body, setting the direction of national governance for the following five years and electing a new Central Committee.


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