Credit : BRICS NEWS
China’s Communist Party has formally confirmed the expulsion of 33 senior officials, including a former top military commander and a former Politburo member, in the largest such purge at a single party plenum in the post-Mao era, as President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign reaches deeper into the ranks of the party and the armed forces.
The news was highlighted by the news aggregator BRICS News, which reported on X on October 30, 2026, Malaysia time, that 33 officials had been expelled as the purge deepened. The expulsions were confirmed in a communique issued at the close of the party’s fifth plenary session of its 20th Central Committee, released by the official Xinhua news agency on October 29, Reuters reported.
The four-day, closed-door meeting in Beijing upheld earlier decisions by the Political Bureau to expel the officials for what it described as “grave violations of discipline and the law”, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. Such broad allegations have become routine under Xi’s anti-corruption drive and are widely read as a euphemism for corruption, the BBC said.
Top generals and a senior diplomat among those expelled
Those expelled include Zhang Youxia, formerly the country’s top uniformed military commander and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Ma Xingrui, a former Politburo member and former party secretary of Xinjiang. According to Reuters, the list also names former military official Liu Zhenli, former senior diplomat Liu Jianchao, former industry minister Jin Zhuanglong and Yi Huiman, the former chairman of China’s securities regulator. The party also removed Li Yunze, the former head of China’s financial regulator, from his position within the party.
Liu Jianchao, who headed the party’s International Department and had been considered a possible candidate for foreign minister, disappeared from public view in July last year, according to NHK and the BBC. The BBC reported that 16 of the 33 members expelled were from the military.
Record number of empty seats
Only 279 full and alternate members of the Central Committee attended this week’s gathering, compared with the 376 originally named in 2022, meaning more than a quarter of the original cohort was absent, many of them because of purges, Reuters and The Guardian reported. The BBC said it was the first time in Xi’s 14 years of leadership that plenum attendance had fallen below 300, compared with 315 at the fourth plenum in October 2025 and 364 at the third in July 2024.
“More empty seats underscores the plenum’s focus on Xi’s vision of strict internal discipline,” Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at the Asia Society, said in a post on X quoted by The Guardian. According to the BBC, the latest expulsions bring the number of Central Committee members removed during Xi’s third term to 51, up from 35 and five in his first and second terms respectively.
A communique on the meeting stressed the need to strengthen the Central Committee’s “centralized, unified leadership over anti-corruption work” and called for a holistic approach combining severe punishment, targeted remedies and effective prevention to carry the fight against corruption “through to the end”, NHK reported. Participants also adopted a resolution calling for “full and rigorous Party self-governance”.
Zhang Shengmin elevated to the Politburo
In a move described by Reuters as unexpected, the plenum elevated General Zhang Shengmin, the military’s top anti-graft official, to the Politburo. A series of purges has reduced the Central Military Commission, the ruling body of the People’s Liberation Army, to just two members: Xi as chairman and Zhang Shengmin as vice-chairman, according to The Guardian and the BBC. His promotion brings the Politburo to 22 members.
The plenum also set the party’s 21st National Congress for the second half of 2027 in Beijing, effectively opening the twice-a-decade contest for top leadership posts. Xi is widely expected to secure a fourth term as party leader at the congress, The Guardian reported, while analysts say the scale of recent purges may leave few suitable candidates for promotion when the Central Committee and Politburo are refreshed.
Source : BRICS NEWS, with information from Reuters, NHK, the BBC and The Guardian.
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