Empty seats cast shadow over Chinese Communist Party’s plenum

Beijing: The closing communique recently issued after the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) fifth plenum highlighted failings in party leadership while “naming and shaming” dozens of members of the party and military establishments, a report has stated.

It noted that the very public purge forms part of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign that Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched since assuming the top spot of General Secretary of the CCP in 2012.

Issued after the October 26-29 meeting, the communiqué carries a stark warning for CCP members, officials and military personnel that there will be little respite for those found to have flouted party rules and regulations, according to a report in online magazine ‘The Diplomat’.

“Xi’s crusade is likely to have advanced even further into the depths of party misbehaviour by the time the party meets again in the second half of 2027 for the all-important 21st National Party Congress, which will cement CCP leadership for the next five years. Either way, a challenge to Xi’s continued leadership may be in the offing. He has his supporters, to be sure, but through his purges, he has also made enemies, many of them,” it detailed.

The plenum also adopted a resolution that the report described as “awkwardly titled, "Resolution on Certain Major Issues concerning Persevering with Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance.”

Citing the Global Times, an English-language publication affiliated with the official CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily, it said the resolution was aimed at “reinforcing Xi Jinping’s core status and emphasise strict ideological and political loyalty within the party.”

In his explanatory note on the resolution, Xi reiterated that the plenum's focus on self-governance was an “inevitable requirement” for safeguarding ideological purity, preventing corruption from weakening the party and consolidating its grip on power, 'The Diplomat' report mentioned.

“Xi did not explain, however, how his party can continue to claim total legitimacy in the face of having exposed millions of party cadres, from top to bottom, who have abused their office and CCP membership for personal gain. Some of the corruption occurred during the rule of Xi’s predecessors, to be sure, but the party was the same party as today,” it detailed.

Highlighting that a significant number of seats were empty during the CCP meetings, the report questioned whether the gathering could be called a plenum.

“Therefore, it is worth noting that calling this meeting a ‘plenum’ may be a bit of a misnomer. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a plenum in politics and governance is ‘a meeting at which all the members of a group or organisation are present’.That didn’t happen this year,” it noted.

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