China's Xi opens Communist Party plenum, aims for firm governance measures

China's Communist Party began a meeting of senior cadres on Monday aimed at tightening discipline and pressing officials to implement Beijing's orders, paving the way for a leadership reshuffle next year expected to extend President Xi Jinping's rule for ‌another five years.

Xi briefed the party's four-day Central Committee meeting on a draft document centred on "full and rigorous party self-governance" that state news agency Xinhua said addressed the challenges the party faced, including growing its governing capacity, as well as guarding against complacency and combating corruption, the president's signature campaign. The implementation of major decisions and plans of the Central ‌Committee, the largest of its top decision-making bodies, must not be empty rhetoric, the Xinhua commentary read.

"It is essential to both refine institutional rules and regulations to ‌close loopholes and strengthen safeguards, and ensure their effective implementation," it said. The Central Committee will convene in the closed-door meeting from Monday to Thursday — the fifth such gathering since the current cohort was formed in 2022 and therefore known as the "fifth plenum".

Analysts say this could be the last major party gathering before its 2027 leadership reshuffle, when Xi is expected to hold on to the top job for a ⁠fourth term. "The ​plenum will present Xi as in ⁠control, and able to continue his command," said Kerry Brown, director of King's College London's Lau China Institute. "It is likely everything will be centred on him, to dispel any rumours or doubts about his physical fitness ⁠and ability to continue in his role."

With substantive policy issues already largely set in previous gatherings, "this will be a plenum where appearances will matter as much, if not more, than ​substance," Brown added. ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION FOR MARKET PREDICTABILITY

Xi has overseen a vast anti-corruption campaign in recent years which has led to the purge of hundreds ⁠of senior officials and top generals, even the president's one-time allies. While some say the purges — particularly those targeting the highest ranks of the armed forces — are destabilising and undermine combat readiness, the party has portrayed ⁠the ​campaign as both necessary and regenerative, saying the military must undergo a phoenix-like rebirth and "bathe in flames and be forged anew."

The Xinhua commentary presented the anti-corruption drive as a demonstration of "sustained and systemic" self-governance to "ensure officials dare not, cannot and do not want to commit corruption". "For global investors and policymakers, this signals greater predictability," it said, ⁠arguing that China was also creating a more transparent environment for international cooperation as merit and the rule of law prevail over connections and bribery.

Typically seven plenums — ⁠each usually associated with a particular agenda — are ⁠held between major party congresses, which convene twice a decade. The party's constitution requires at least one plenum to be held every year. The fifth plenum usually deliberates the country's strategic blueprint, the five-year plan, but an unusually late third plenum, delayed for ‌more than half year until ‌mid-2024, has disrupted the conventional scheduling.