You need to know about this Communist meeting

There ain’t no party like the Communist Party.

• Impressive interior décor? Check.

• Carefully choreographed proceedings? Cheque.

• Tasteful flower displays? Czech.

Wedding planners could really learn a thing or two, because whatever the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lacks in letting you cast your vote, speak your mind, or choose your faith, it over-compensates with truly excellent organisational skills, as we saw in its conclave of ~315 top Party cadres at this week’s fourth plenum in Beijing.

It’s a semi-annual affair, with seven plenums (or plena 🤓) typically held every five years. The idea is to set China’s direction on the big issues, with this latest plenum focused on finalising the next big five-year plan (2026-2030).

And while this stuff is ultra-secretive (the Jingxi Hotel is walled off like Wonka’s factory), and dense (even the English versions need translation), it’s all worth your attention because these obscure decisions can ripple around the world. 

So, here are the most intriguing bits, framed like a wedding for some reason:

• The invitations (military purge)

Nailing down that wedding guest list is often the hardest part — what if Uncle Gus does his Nixon impression again! But it’s easy if you’re Xi Jinping, who uninvited (fired) nine of his most powerful military officers just days before the plenum kicked off.

He even ditched He Weidong, vice-chair of China’s powerful Central Military Commission — and to give you an idea of how big a deal that is, the chair is Xi himself!

So why this epic purge? The official reason was corruption, and “severely undermining” the Party’s highest ranks (aka Xi), all plausible claims in the sense that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) does have a massive corruption problem.

But the opacity of it all means the void gets filled with speculation of some kind of power struggle, particularly when you look at who got promoted to replace him: a guy called Zhang Shengmin, who was the PLA’s own head of anti-corruption. In a toxic workplace, the best way to avoid getting thrown under the bus is to drive it.

Anyway, this latest plenum had the lowest attendance since Mao’s days, with dozens of cadres missing, so maybe Xi’s crackdown / paranoia is broader than anyone realises?

• Champagne on arrival (domestic demand)

The 5,000-word communiqué reiterates familiar messaging about China’s need to boost domestic demand — an external (export-heavy) strategy is risky in a trade war. But there’s still no real detail on how Xi might ramp demand up at home. That’s possibly because he doesn’t know how (China’s economy is like no other), or he does know how but doesn’t like the required trade-offs (like more debt and/or less control).

• Canapés (tech self-reliance)

The communiqué also pledges “substantial improvements in scientific and technological self-reliance and strength”, particularly in areas where the US now has real leverage (chips, AI, aerospace, etc). So expect China to lean even harder into industrial policy and import substitution through 2030, which also means tougher times ahead for any economy (cough Germany cough) still relying on selling value-added stuff to China. Now time for…

• Fish or chicken (military)

The cadres emphasised the PLA’s dual need for…

a) combat preparedness — it’s a reference to the fact that, beyond water-cannoning Philippine sailors and flare-dropping Australian pilots, the PLA hasn’t seen much action since Deng lost 20,000 men in his disastrous 1979 invasion of Vietnam. And…

b) intelligentization — that looks to us like incorporating the brutal lessons from Putin’s flailing if deadly invasion of Ukraine (AI, autonomous systems, etc), because you can bet Taiwan is already eyeing the same asymmetric potential of drones.

And now, before you start trying to hail that Uber, don’t forget the…

• Sorbet (APEC)

Beijing and DC are due to resume trade talks in Malaysia today (Friday), before Xi and Trump meet in South Korea just ahead of the big Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit next Friday (Oct 31) and Saturday (Nov 1), though nothing is locked yet.