China promotes Zhang Shengmin to top party body after military purges
The Communist Party raised its vice chairman of the military commission to the Politburo during a closed-door session in Bangkok.
By Noor Rossi ·
Chinese Communist Party leaders voted on Thursday to elevate General Zhang Shengmin to the Politburo. This move places the only remaining general from the military commission into the party's highest governing body. The decision came at the end of a four-day closed-door meeting.
Zhang currently serves as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He also acts as deputy secretary of the CMC Commission for Discipline Inspection, a role that oversees internal military discipline. His promotion fills a gap left by earlier purges of two other top generals. Those removals had left the Politburo without any representatives from the People's Liberation Army.
The party leadership adopted a resolution during the session to strengthen self-governance and anti-corruption efforts. A summary from the state-run Xinhua News Agency described the party's tasks as increasingly arduous. The document calls for uniting the people to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
The resolution emphasizes the need for ideological purity and close ties with the public. It urges the party to maintain its progressive nature to enhance long-term governance capacity. This follows a decade-long anti-corruption campaign championed by President Xi Jinping since he took power in 2012.
Analysts note that the crackdown now includes underperforming officials, not just corrupt ones. The meeting also involved reviewing and confirming personnel changes from recent purges of top military and party members. These actions aim to extend the leadership's grip on power ahead of the next term.
Neil Thomas, a senior fellow at Asia Policy, analyzed the attendance figures for the plenum. He calculated an attendance rate of 74 percent, the lowest since the era of former leader Mao Zedong. Thomas said this revealed wider-than-expected purges within the party structure.
The session takes place about a year before President Xi Jinping is widely expected to secure his fourth five-year term as party leader. The resolutions adopted during this meeting will guide the party's direction in the coming years.
Source: KGOU
