Xi’s throwing a party

Imagine one of those awful corporate offsites, but instead of trust-falls and icebreakers, everyone is terrified of being purged by Friday.

Welcome, dear Intriguer, to China’s Fifth Plenum.

The chair? None other than Xi Jinping himself.

The guests? We’re talking the absolute crème de la freakin crème from the Party’s all-powerful Central Committee: ~200 ‘voting’ members plus ~170 non-voters.

The choreography? Tighter than Step Up, Step Up 2 (The Streets), Step up 3D, Step Up (Revolution), and Step Up (All In)… combined.

The point? These quasi-annual Plenums (or Plena for Latin nerds 🤓) serve as key touchpoints for Xi and his close circle to set China’s path on the big issues. 

So, here are the five intriguing things to know, starting with… 

1. The theme 

These Plenums usually rotate through seven themes: the first and second after each Party Congress finalise top leadership appointments, the third gets into the economy, the fourth gets more into Party / discipline, the fifth looks at the next Five-Year Plan, and the sixth weighs into culture and ideology, until the seventh high-fives all the above before finalising details for the next Party Congress.

By that system, this year’s fifth Plenum should’ve been about the next Five-Year Plan, but things are now all out of whack after China skipped an earlier Plenum in 2023 (without explanation btw, though Beijing was navigating a widening real estate crisis, internal purges, and a Biden-Xi summit at the time).

So instead, this Plenum focused on Xi’s fave topic: his Party. State outlets put it like this: “The stronger the Party's capacity to govern itself, the stronger its capacity to govern the country.” You can’t argue with that. Under Xi Jinping, you literally can’t.

But while it sounds like standard jargon, this theme reflects a lingering frustration for Xi: after years of corruption crackdowns, terrified cadres now pass every minor decision up the chain rather than show any initiative. This “lying flat” (tangping) approach to self-preservation hasn’t fixed the corruption, but it has exacerbated China’s bureaucratic paralysis, right as China’s challenges mount.

Anyway, we don’t traditionally hear much about each Plenum’s specific decisions until days or weeks after the formalities conclude, but we can already take a look at…

2. The (shorter) guestlist

These Plenum guestlists keep getting shorter. In fact, last year’s fourth Plenum had the lowest attendance since the Cultural Revolution! And to be clear, this isn’t because the venue suddenly ran short of banquet chairs.

Rather, it’s because Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao, keeps purging anyone causing trouble, whether it’s corruption, perceived disloyalty, or a mix of both. In fact, during the first nine months of the year, he already placed 71 (!) senior civilian and military leaders under investigation. And since last year’s Plenum, he’s ousted another three from the all-powerful 24-member Politburo!

That’s why this year, full-time China nerd and friend of Intrigue Neil Thomas estimates attendance might be even lower, down to 77% of the original 376. That tracks with state media whispers that there are “roughly 300” members inside.

Once the actual list drops, China-watchers will scour it to confirm a) how many more Party members have now been purged, and b) who’s left to carry out Xi’s plans.

All this leads up to…

3. New appointments? 

These mid-term Plenums aren’t really a time to appoint new leadership, but it has happened before (most recently in 1994!), and some folks wonder if Xi might try that again given his purges have left important gaps in China’s top military brass.

In fact, after his last two purges from the top Central Military Commission earlier this year, that all-powerful CMC now only has two members! And one is Xi himself!!

So it’s possible Xi could decide to rebuild the CMC at this Plenum to reward loyal lieutenants or calm whispers around the military’s readiness. Or he could wait until…

4. Next year’s Party Congress

If the seven Plenums are like appetisers (passed apps?), the main course is really the Party Congress every five years, with the next due late in 2027. To give you a sense just how important they are, recall Xi used the last Congress (2022) to secure his norm-breaking third term. He’ll now help himself to a fourth term next year.

So, many folks think Xi’s recent fixation on discipline and Party self-governance might be all about getting everyone in line ahead of his own next self-coronation.

But now that he’s 73 years old, keep an ear to the ground for…

5. The 7G

Not your next cell network, but the Party’s seventh generation, being cadres born in the 60s-70s. They now make up around 8% of the Plenum / Congress attendees, but that number is expected to grow significantly at the next Congress as earlier Gs retire.

And with Xi now holding onto the top job indefinitely, the real Intrigue™ lies in which of these fresh-faced new 50-somethings might get fast-tracked into new roles, or even (gasp) get groomed as Xi’s eventual successor.