Xi Starts Party Session With Lowest Turnout in 50 Years

President Xi Jinping opened a four-day meeting of the Communist Party's Central Committee on Monday.

The session, known as the fifth plenum, is a closed-door gathering of roughly 300 senior officials. Its primary focus is strengthening internal discipline and enforcing loyalty to the party leadership.

This year's plenum features the lowest attendance since the death of former leader Mao Zedong in 1976. Eight seats on the Central Committee are currently empty. Additionally, 15 other members are under investigation and may be replaced before the session concludes.

Xi has led a 14-year anticorruption campaign that has removed thousands of officials. Despite these purges, he recently criticized cadres for failing to follow orders. In a speech published by state media in January, he described some leaders as two-faced and politically opportunistic.

The timing of the meeting occurs about a year before Xi is expected to secure a fourth five-year term as party leader. Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, told The Associated Press that the plenum serves to align new generations of officials with Xi's view of China's risks and opportunities.

According to Xinhua news agency, the committee will review a draft policy decision on advancing full and rigorous party self-governance. The goal is to make officials more disciplined and less corrupt. Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, anticipates calls for closer scrutiny of public spending and the use of technology to detect wrongdoing.

The anticorruption drive has significantly impacted the military, removing five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission. The plenum may bring new appointments to that body. These political maneuvers unfold while China's economy struggles with weak domestic spending and a prolonged crisis in the property sector.