The Communist Party of China has confirmed the expulsion of 33 officials at the fifth plenary session of its 20th Central Committee in Beijing. The decision upheld earlier Politburo rulings, while Li Yunze received a different sanction: removal from Party office.
The session ran from 26 to 29 October 2026, according to the official communique. Alongside the disciplinary decisions, it adopted a resolution on full and rigorous Party self-governance, set the timing of the 21st Party Congress and elected Zhang Shengmin to the Political Bureau.
Disciplinary decisions confirmed
The communique said the session adopted disciplinary-inspection reports concerning 18 Party and government officials and 16 people covered by the Central Military Commission report. It confirmed the Politburo’s earlier decisions to expel 33 named people from the Party, while imposing the separate sanction on Li.
The two report totals amount to 34 people, but the number expelled was 33. The difference reflects the treatment of Li’s case: removal from Party office, rather than expulsion from the Party. The overall number covered by the reports is therefore distinct from the expulsion total.
The official wording also distinguishes between the earlier Politburo decisions and their confirmation at the plenum. The expulsions were presented as decisions already taken by the Politburo, which the Central Committee then confirmed, rather than as expulsion decisions first made during the four-day session.
Ma Xingrui, Zhang Youxia, Liu Zhenli, Liu Jianchao, Jin Zhuanglong and Yi Huiman were among those named for expulsion. They form part of the total of 33 people whose expulsions were confirmed; the decisions extended beyond those six named individuals.
Sixteen of those expelled were military officers. The disciplinary outcome thus covered both military personnel and Party or government officials. The reports placed before the session likewise covered those two areas, with military cases addressed through the Central Military Commission report.
The disciplinary proceedings had two recorded stages at the plenum: adoption of the reports and confirmation of the earlier expulsion decisions. Those actions established the session’s formal disciplinary outcome, with Li’s removal from Party office recorded separately from the sanctions imposed on the 33 people expelled.
Congress timetable and leadership election
The session also adopted a resolution on full and rigorous Party self-governance, according to the official account. This was a further formal outcome of the meeting, alongside the disciplinary reports and sanctions, placing Party self-governance among the matters addressed by the Central Committee.
The 21st Party Congress was set for the second half of 2027. That timetable places the congress in the calendar year following the October 2026 plenum. The announced timing is a half-year period, rather than a specified month or day for the congress.
The congress is therefore a future event on the timetable agreed by the Central Committee. Its scheduling is distinct from the completed decisions announced at this session: adoption of the self-governance resolution, confirmation of the expulsions, the sanction on Li and the Political Bureau election.
Zhang Shengmin was elected to the Political Bureau during the session. His election was recorded alongside the congress timetable and the self-governance resolution as another outcome of the meeting, separate from the disciplinary decisions concerning the officials covered by the reports.
The plenum’s confirmed outcomes combined individual disciplinary sanctions with decisions on Party self-governance, leadership and the next congress. Within that package, the expulsion figure remains 33, with Li’s removal from Party office constituting a different sanction.
