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China's Xi Jinping expels a record 33 officials, including his own military secretary, as a quarter of leaders are absent

Zhang Shengming, the Central Military Commission's sole remaining military member apart from Xi Jinping himself, filling a Politburo seat left vacant after Xi purged two senior generals.
Zhang Shengming, the Central Military Commission's sole remaining military member apart from Xi Jinping himself, filling a Politburo seat left vacant after Xi purged two senior generals.

Xi Jinping has formally purged more than a quarter of the Communist Party's Central Committee since 2022, with Thursday's plenum ratifying 33 expulsions and recording the highest absence rate in the post-Mao era. The party vowed to keep "turning the knife inwards" as Xi consolidates power ahead of securing a fourth term in 2027.

The Central Military Commission has been nearly gutted — five of its seven members appointed in 2022 have now been purged, leaving only Xi and discipline enforcer Zhang Shengmin.

Former senior diplomat Liu Jianchao and Zhong Shaojun, Xi's personal military secretary of over a decade, were among those formally expelled after months of unexplained disappearance.

Analysts say the plenum also set China's 21st Party Congress for the second half of 2027, effectively beginning the choreography for Xi's expected fifth five-year term.

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